


The Wars We Fight and The Sides We Choose

by Purple_Firestorm



Series: Every Choice Made (The Walking Dead) [3]
Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (Comics), The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Abuse of Authority, Angst, Angst and Smut, BDSM, Betrayal, Blood, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark, Discussion of Abortion, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Heavy Angst, Intense, Makeup Sex, Miscarriage, Multi, Non-Canon Events, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Rape Recovery, Rape/Non-con Elements, Smut, Torture, Trilogy, Unplanned Pregnancy, War, fall of a tyrant, final part, tyranical rule
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-16 17:30:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 18
Words: 57,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9282482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Purple_Firestorm/pseuds/Purple_Firestorm
Summary: War is imminent for the Saviors with the illusive and constant Infinity group, and the people Negan has been taking from and oppressing. With the wars coming and so many lives to be lost, Aura must make one final choice: which side will she chose when the time comes. And will she try to stop a war before it starts, or will that option be taken from her hands before she has a chance to make it? And on top of all that, she endures a tragedy that may very well kill her on the inside.On hiatus until other work is completed.





	1. The Small Communities

**Author's Note:**

> This is the final "book" in this series, and will wrap up nicely, though I think it will end up being much longer than the others. Not sure if that's good or bad. It will all come to a head here: war with the Infinity people, and war with everyone else. If you haven't read the comics at all, then most of this book, at least post-Infinity War, will be one giant spoiler.

It was a few days since the runners returned from the town of Everest, one of the small communities Negan took from, only to find it had been burned to the ground, and everyone in it dead. The same had happened to Ravine compound, and most of the runners that had gone to collect from them hadn’t made it back. Negan was in arms about the whole thing, but he was still unable to move far because of his injury when those same people attacked us a few weeks ago. He could move around the compound just fine, but he wasn’t strong enough to go on runs or check on other places, and I knew it was driving him mad. Which was in turn driving me and Dwight mad.

Negan and I hadn’t talked to one another, not a word, other than to check on his wounds and how he was healing, since I had woken up in his bed. My insides churned and I felt self-loathing unlike I had ever felt before when I thought about it. All I could think about was the look on Daryl’s face when he found out, when I would tell him before Negan rubbed it in his face. I knew Negan was smug about how he’d gotten me in bed with him, after over a year of him trying, but I kept reminding him every time he tried to bring it up that I had been very drunk, and mourning the loss of Simon, who had been my best friend. Negan would argue that Simon had been his friend too, and then he’d brought up that I hadn’t fucking stopped him, that I had cum all over his cock that night, and I’d break whatever I was holding, including his fingers at least once. I got some kind of pleasure from that.

Negan was busy though, prepping everyone inside the walls for the idea that we might have to go to war with this new threat, and I was getting the medical bay ready for the onslaught of injured that I knew would result from the fight. I sometimes let my mind think where it might happen, and I had a feeling it wouldn’t be here, not again, those people had learned that this place wouldn’t go down very easy. Negan also interrogated the man I had brought back from the Family, and Negan had learned that the people we were facing called themselves Infinity, not the most creative name, but neither was ‘The Saviors.’ The kid was dead, Negan had beat him so hard he got a concussion, and before I could get to him, he was worth more alive than dead, he slipped into a coma, and there would be no waking him up.

I left Pam, my new intern I guess is the best word, in charge of the medical bay while I was on a run; with Negan still sidelined and Dwight making sure things stayed secure in the sanctuary and the area around it, it now fell to me to visit other communities, something I told Negan I hated, and I told him I would take fewer supplies from them than he wanted, since I was now in charge. We ended up in a fist fight in his office, and I still sported the bruising eye and swollen jaw, while Negan wasn’t much better with a slightly broken nose, a cracked back tooth (karma), and both shoulders out of socket, which I refused to put back. He was sore and in a very bad mood when I left the sanctuary and headed for the smaller communities first: Apostles, Eagle’s Perch and Black Pearl communities were the ones that were smallest, and they were the most likely to be attacked. We hadn’t heard anything from the Infinity people since the last attack on Ravine and town of Everest, but that didn’t mean something didn’t happen. The other 3 communities were smaller because they were nestled deep in the woods, farther south and they spent much of their time hunting. We hadn’t been to them in 2 weeks, skipping 2 collections because it was too far and we got too little from them to make such frequent trips.

I drove to the farthest compound first, Eagle’s Perch, which was nestled near some cliffs deep in some pine forests famous for their pre-turn deer and bear hunting. When we found them unscathed, I met with the leader and talked to him about what had happened to the other communities, and he looked at me like he didn’t believe me, but I knew he saw the long cut on my cheek now. It had healed well after the attack on the sanctuary, but it was now a long, red, angry scar and Negan hated that it marred my pretty face. Everyone else told me it made me look tough. I didn’t care really.

The leader, nicknamed Paul Bunyan for his massive size and the plaid lumberjack shirts he wore even in the middle of summer, just snarled at me as the other runners loaded up on the supplies, despite us taking a lot less than normal. I hated doing this, I truly did; it made me and all my people look like parasites that were incapable of surviving without someone else to leech off of. Paul Bunyan just snarled at me as I tried to reason with him and warn him, but being a savior, and one of Negan’s most trusted saviors at that, meant anything I said would go in one of his large ears and out the other, like a petulant teenager.

They waved us off, some of them flipping us off and I rolled my eyes, worried that they would get themselves killed, then a woman stopped us; I slammed on the breaks and recognized her as a woman I had helped in the past, when she was in labor and I happened to be visiting, one of the few times Negan had let me come with. I helped her through the labor and Negan had left me at Eagle’s Perch overnight with Simon as a guard, because even though we had fought over it, Negan knew he wouldn’t win that fight with me, not with a woman in labor. And if I was honest, Negan was hoping the baby was born alright; Negan never had kids, but he told me a few times he wished he had. One reason he like Judith, Rick’s little girl, so much; plus she was the cutest little thing ever, and it tormented Rick. The woman, named Maria, asked to come with us, because she was sure she would be killed if she stayed here, and she piled in with us, all her things in tow, and her other child, a boy about the same age as Carl, in with her. She had already talked to Paul Bunyan about it, and Maria told me that Paul Bunyan was ignoring the signs.

“Signs?” one of the runners asked with a raised eyebrow, looking back at the kid in the backseat and both had their heads down. “We’re being watched here, but Paul thinks it’s too isolated up here, that no one wants this place,” the kid said and I looked up at him. “Negan wanted this place, someone else might too,” I said with a sigh and asked if anyone else had expressed wanting to come with. Maria shook her head and I sighed, then started back down the narrow road and out onto the main road about an hour later.

We had to pull over a few minutes later, because the baby was crying from the bumpy ride and I was getting carsick myself. As soon as we pulled over, everyone got out, but I threw myself out the door, ran to the other side of the road and promptly vomited into the snowy ditch. This far up the mountain, snow was thick and staying, which was why I wanted to come here first: anyone else that came up would have left tracks in the snow, plus it was the farthest from the sanctuary, so we wouldn’t need to double back and could scavenge in a few places on the way back. I wiped my mouth as one of the runners came to see if I was alright, but I waved him off to keep watch as Maria fed the baby, who was about 4 months old. We got back into the van, the truck behind us and we headed back down the mountain, to the next stop, which was the Apostles.

The Apostles of John were a very religious group, made the oddballs in the kingdom look like casual role-players, and sometimes the Apostles were fanatical, violent even, but lately they had been tamed down when Negan had brought down some very harsh judgment of his own, killing 2 men and a woman, all fighters, leaving the group on the verge of civil war with themselves. Honestly, I avoided this group if I could, they were often unpredictable, and I didn’t care for what they called mercy, though neither Negan or I understood what that meant, and none of the residents had talked about it. Maria and her son were interested in seeing another compound and meeting other people, but I told her that she would meet over 100 at the Hilltop, which was the last stop on the rounds, after Alexandria and the Kingdom.

I didn’t need to worry about the Apostles. I knew, about a mile away from their compound hidden in the woods, that they weren’t there anymore. The silence, the lack of hammering and working to prep for the winter, it was too intense and I pulled over about half a mile from their compound, took just 1 runner with me and left the others to guard the van and truck, and took a short cut through the woods. The compound was like the runners had described the 2 compounds last week: nothing left, no food, not even wrappers or empty cans, just shells of buildings and eaten bodies littering the ground sporadically. The runner, Jared, and I walked through the place carefully, aware that some of the Infinity people might still be around, or hoping that someone had survived and had bene hiding, but after about half an hour of searching and the sun starting to touch the tops of the trees and cast long shadows, we left; I felt defeated, hating that more and more people were dying. We collected from them, like gangsters in the 1920s, and I had always put it on myself to make sure they lived, were relatively safe, but they had been wiped out, another 22 people killed under the watch of the saviors. I couldn’t help but take it personally. Jared and I were back at the truck and van in record time and we booked it to the next compound, the final one of the day, and we would spend the night there, at the Black Pearl.

We drove for some time until we came to the shores of a large lake, so big that you couldn’t see the other side of it and we could see some people working on the shores. The guards whistled as they saw our cars and I saw the anger and some defeat in their eyes, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to take anything from them when I got out. Seeing the previous compound burned out had left me feeling defeated and sad, and I didn’t want to spread that around more than I needed too. The other runners were feeling off too, seeing so many falling compounds, plus there was a girl here that another runner had a crush on, and they would hook up whenever her got a chance to come here, which wasn’t often. The runner looked at me, asking me with his face and I nodded to him, giving him a smirk and shaking my head with the thought ‘young love, so cute.’

The couple met up and disappeared around a few bushes, though I had an idea what they were doing. The girl wouldn’t come back with us because her mom was here, and the runner wouldn’t leave the sanctuary because his sister was with us and he knew what Negan would do to him and his sister if he tried. The only reason the runner was even allowed to leave, considering his split loyalties, was that I thought they were a cute couple and I convinced Negan on the lovers’’ behalf. I met the leader on the shores, dressed in what I could only think as Disney pirate clothes, with large buckles, striped shirt and tall boots and a hat on his head that made me think of Jack Sparrow. The guy gave me a laugh, and he reminded me of Ezekiel, who also had a kind of show of his leadership, except he acted like a medieval king.

I spoke with the leader of the Black Pearl what happened with the other communities, and he wasn’t worried, saying they would pick up their anchors and head for the center of the lake, they had enough things on board to live for several weeks, and by then winter would have frozen the lake, letting them walk across it back to shore. I had to admit, the whole idea was cool but I was worried nonetheless. The leader, who called himself the Captain, but I knew him as Greg, welcomed us when I told him we were staying the night, while making rounds and checking on everyone to make sure the same people didn’t get to them.  
“You’re surprised by the concern,” I said to him, not really meant to be a question and he nodded eventually. “Aye, didn’t think Negan gave a shit ‘bout us,” he said in a faint pirate movie accent and I had to keep myself from laughing as I was reminded of cheap pirate movies and commercials. God it felt like so long ago, but it had only been about 2 years since the turn.

“Well, since I’m here and checking up on everyone, I came with my kit. If anyone wants a once over from me, I won’t charge you. If they need meds, that something else, but I won’t charge your insurance, or your stockpiles,” I said with a faint smirk and the captain looked at me then he nodded and I smiled at him. He poured me some liquor from a small desk in his office aboard a large yacht, and I took a sip to be polite, but didn’t finish it. The last time I drank too much was still on my mind and I still wasn’t sure what I was going to tell Daryl when I saw him. The idea was terrifying, but I needed to tell him the truth, tell him that I still loved him above everyone else, certainly above Negan.

The captain took the rest of the alcohol from me and drank it himself, seeing that I wasn’t going to finish it and there was no reason for it to go to waste. The sun was setting and the area around the shores were getting dark, so the runner and the pretty girl he liked emerged from the woods and climbed onto the boat with the rest, and I could hear the faint sounds of Maria cooing her baby as the boat rocked gently in the water, lulling the baby, Maria and her son to sleep after what had to be a very exhausting day. I walked out onto the deck of the yacht, wishing that I could have been on one before the turn, when it would blare music, with lots of booze and dancing on the deck as it moved through warm tropical waters. I stood on the deck, enjoying the view from the lake, taking in the golden hues of the setting sun on the rippling water.  
I felt it before I heard or saw it. Someone, several of them, were watching me, watching the boat. I turned to the source of the staring and dove to the side, and an arrow grazed my arm.

“Siege!” I shouted as loud as I could and the runners I was with were up on the deck with me, just in time to see several small burning bottles being thrown at it. I raised my bow at them and shot them in the air, the burning alcohol falling into the water and going out instantly. The captain was on the deck and was pulling up the anchors with some help as about 2 dozen men and women emerged from the cover of the woods; arrows and spears hit the boat and water as they tried to stop us, but there was nothing to use to get onto the boat form the shore, the gangplank being pulled up already, though I thought I saw someone with a grappling hook. I pulled out my long knives, which were long enough to be small swords, and as soon as the grappling hook hit the wood, I pulled on it hard, yanking the man tied to the rope up to the yacht and a runner helped me pull him up. Soon as we could reach him we hit him hard on the head and some others pulled him below deck, tying him up; I started firing off arrows at the others on the shore as the yacht began to move in the water, sails opening up around me and the attackers slowly disappeared into the woods as we drifted away from the beach and into the deeper waters of the massive lake.

“Shit,” was the first thing out of my mouth as I looked at my arm and applied some pressure to it. It burned like hell, but it was shallow and more annoying than anything. I cleaned it as the boat made it into the deeper waters and the anchors were dropped into the lake and we were gonna stay out on the lake for a few days, ride out the people that had attacked us. The captain seemed to know what he was doing I had the same idea, that waiting for the attackers to leave, since they wouldn’t have enough supplies for a long stakeout, was the best plan. I just hoped they wouldn’t move on to another community while we were out of their reach. I looked from one person to another and they seemed awed with my archery skills, and I just sighed, and decided to call it a night; the captain would have his own people on watch, though I wasn’t really needed this far out in the lake.

I didn’t sleep well, even though the waves should have lulled me like it did the baby; I kept seeing Daryl’s angry face in my dreams, telling me that he would never forgive me for sleeping with Negan, never and he would never look at me again, never wanted to see me again. I’d wake up covered in tears and someone eventually shoved a pillow on my face to muffle the sounds of my crying in the night. I also had nightmares of the same Infinity people attacking people I cared about: Daryl, people back at the sanctuary, Judith, who was just a tiny thing, even Dwight. The next day was hard on me because I kept wanting to get some sleep but couldn’t, all I saw were those nightmares over and over again. Plus, I was vomiting about once every hour; I’d liked going on boats when I was younger and never got seasick, so I had no idea what the problem was now. I just told myself it was nerves and worry and lack of sleep, that was all it could be anyway.

The 2nd night on the lake wasn’t much better than the first, and when I woke up whit the sun, I hadn’t slept more than an hour over the course of the night, unable to get those images from my head. More and more I saw faceless figures with that red Infinity mark on their arms killing people that I cared about, over and over again while I screamed for it to stop, trying to run to them but I never got closer to them, only farther away.

Jared and the other runners could tell the lack of sleep was getting to me, but it wasn’t like we all hadn’t had something like this before: lack of sleep was common in the apocalypse. The captain spotted a decent place to head back for the shore and we were all on edge as we got close, wondering if the attackers would move to where we were heading and charge us once the boat stopped near the beach. We waited for about an hour after getting near shore and putting just 1 anchor down, in case we needed to leave again, but nothing happened. I was the first off the boat, anxious to get away from the yacht, even though it was very comfortable and fairly safe; I looked through the woods before letting the others come off the yacht and bade the captain and the other members of the Black Pearl farewell and told them we’d check on them again before the snow got too deep.

“Lookin’ forward ta seein’ ya again lass,” the captain said in his bad pirate accent and I felt a smile on my face.

That smile faded when we got to the van and truck and found it had been ripped apart: the tires, gas, all the fluids, everything was gone, even the batteries and seats. We’d taken most of our food and weapons with us in our packs, but that didn’t make it any easier. It would take days to walk to the next compound, the closest one was the Kingdom, and it was about 2 days’ fast walk to get there, and we couldn’t do that, not with the supplies we had and a baby in tow. Plus, Maria was still recovering from the minor surgery I had to perform on her during the pregnancy. I had basically destroyed her cervix and most of her vaginal canal in the process to free and position the baby correctly, but she said it was worth it. Still, the woman wasn’t that young, in her 40s, and that kind of surgery took a toll on her body, especially with a baby to care for.

I spent a few hours looking for another car, and found one in an old farmhouse a few miles from the lake, and was able to jump the car when I gave it a new battery. It had been covered in plants, so it had never been tapped for gas and had half a tank in it. I just hoped Negan understood what happened to the truck and van. I shook myself mentally; the mood he’s been in, I doubt he’ll understand. We drove in silence for a while until Jared found some CDs under his seat and I put one in. After all, as the driver, I got to choose. The entire van groaned loudly, except Maria, when they heard Taylor Swift playing through the speakers, and I laughed. I wasn’t going to torture them, I just wanted to see their faces. I picked out another one, greatest hits of the year 2016, and actually put ‘Heathens’ on repeat. Poetic really, considering everything we all had to do in the last 2 years to survive.

It took most of the day to drive to the Kingdom, and they hadn’t been expecting us, so they were up in arms at first, until one of the guards saw me. Though I didn’t get out of the sanctuary on runs much, everyone remembered my face, because I was a walking enigma: I was the kind Savior.

We were escorted to see Ezekiel, and I was happy to see Jesus was there with him, in his ‘throne room’ and Shiva the big and rather lovable tiger looked up at me as I entered his room. I could feel everyone I had come with, the runners and the small family alike, shake with either fear anticipation or both, as they eyed the tiger. “That’s Shiva, King Ezekiel’s tiger,” I said to the son, who was looking like he might trip over himself wanting to get closer. “pet her behind the ears, she loves it,” I said and he looked at me like I was crazy, then I stepped forward with a smile to Ezekiel, and Shiva rose form her spot on the floor, expectant eyes staring at my face, then my hands.

“Aww, I missed you too, Shiva,” I said as I rubbed the very large animal behind the ears and she closed her large yellow eyes and I heard a faint rumbling sound from her chest, much like purring.

“To what do I owe this unexpected but not unwanted drop in?” Ezekiel asked and I looked up at him and sighed, standing up from petting Shiva and she looked at me with some kind of disappointment in her eyes. I stroked her large, fluffy head as I looked at her owner and sighed again. “I came to make sure everyone was alright.”

Everyone scoffed at me and I raised an eyebrow at them, the ‘knights’ as they called themselves, and they looked away from me. Even without Negan present, they knew it was a bad idea to disrespect me; some of the residents were more afraid of me than they were of Negan. I looked at Ezekiel and Shiva rubbed her large face and cheek against my leg and I continued stroking her as I talked to her owner. “You know there’s other, smaller communities around here, right?” I asked him and both he and Jesus nodded. “Well, over the last few weeks, several of them were attacked. Ravine compound, the town of Everest, Apostles of John and the Family have all been wiped out, burned to the ground. And a few days ago, at the Black Pearl lake compound, the same group attacked us and tried to get aboard. They take no prisoners, and the same time the Family was wiped out, they killed some Saviors, including Simon.” I paused and felt the lump in my throat as I said his name and I could see the empathy on Ezekiel’s face as I said this. Simon wasn’t the worst Savior of the bunch, not by a long shot, and most leaders knew that Simon and I were close and the only ones that could really reel in Negan.

“What’s Negan done about this?” one of the knights asked and I paused, then decided the truth was the best, they would find out eventually. “He can’t do much right now. Under my orders as the doctor, he’s bedridden,” I said and I felt several mouths fall open at the idea that Negan was taking orders from anyone. Jesus wasn’t sure what to say and Ezekiel was just dumbstruck. “About a month ago, those same people that wiped out the smaller compounds thought to take us on first. They led a herd of walkers to the gates to break the fences and walls, then opened fire on us. During the fight with these people, I guess they call themselves Infinity, Negan was stabbed and is still recovering. He’s not able to leave the sanctuary for another 10 days or 2 weeks, depending on how fast he heals. I’m making rounds in his place, with Simon gone and Dwight keeping watch, and making sure the other smaller communities stay alert. See, these Infinity people, they burned the buildings to the ground, and I found at least 2 skeletons that were once kids. They’ve raped, killed, stolen and don’t seem content until everyone that isn’t them is dead or worse. We took out 42 at the sanctuary, and I took out 10 at the Family compound, but they seem to be coming out of the woodwork, and I don’t see an end to their numbers. Thankfully, they don’t shoot at us, so I can only guess they have no ammo, but their weaponry is decent, looks like a professional made the arrows and spears. They also had molotovs when they tried to board the Black Pearl, and I can only guess that the more they interact with us, the more they learn about our own capabilities and what we have that they want.” I could only watch as Jesus and Ezekiel talked to one another about what I had just said until I felt the son walking up to me, and some of the runners, their hands outstretched to the large tiger still enjoying my attention.

“Go ahead, just be gentle,” I whispered to them as Shiva looked at them and I heard her rumbling sound get louder as several hands touched her head and thick fur at once, and I heard the son and a runner whisper something under their breath that sounded a lot like, “fucking awesome.”

“So, you came here after Black Pearl. Are you seeking refuge in my kingdom for the night?” Ezekiel finally said and I looked up at him. “my first concern was spreading the word about the Infinity people, I’m worried about the smaller compounds that are left. I know you aren’t small, not by a long shot, but the Infinity don’t seem to worry about size or obstacles in their path. They attacked us, and we outnumber you and the Hilltop put together; I guess, I’m just concerned for the people. I don’t want more people to die.” I finally said and I was tired of the death and destruction, and I was also just tired. It’d been a very trying few days, and I wanted nothing more to curl up in a warm blanket with a decent book and…

I shut my mouth and held my hand over my mouth as tight as I could, and hurried to the exit as fast as I could, the vomit in my mouth; it tasted like bile because I hadn’t eaten anything that day. I saw a runner look up as was about to ask me what the problem was, but I was out the door, around the corner and I let it out. It tasted awful, plain and simple, and I couldn’t think what was making me so sick. The only thing that came to mind what the nerves I had over telling Daryl, and my stomach rebelled once more and I dry heaved into some overgrown bushes. Jared came out a few moments later and wasn’t sure what to do, then decided to rub my back as I dry heaved some more into the bushes. I took several deep breaths and wiped my mouth on the back of my hand and swished with the water Jared offered me. He looked concerned and I just shook my head at him and muttered, “working myself up too much.” He just nodded because he knew me well enough to know how much other people mattered to me, and that I considered it partly my fault when they died and I hadn’t been able to save them. He rubbed my back a little bit more until I collected myself and headed back in.

Jesus and Ezekiel hadn’t noticed my absence, and the other runners were too busy petting the tiger to notice I had left. Shiva was relishing the attention eyes closed and head titled back as hands rubbed her head, back, neck and all over her body. I laughed a little bit to see her so happy and Maria had moved closer to the tiger, and gently touched the fur but didn’t pet her much afterwards, pulling back and holding her baby. I knew that Negan would never allow his runners to act like this, being all curious and enjoying themselves in something other than collecting and terrorizing, but I wasn’t Negan. Besides, I liked Shiva.

Some knights came forward and offered to show us to a room where we would stay, but Ezekiel stopped him and looked to me. “The lovely lady shall have a room of her own. Please, follow me,” he said and lead the way with Shiva on her leash and I followed him to a room while the others were shown to another part of the large building Ezekiel and his knights called the Castle, where they lived and where everything was kept safe. The room was massive and felt like it had been a CEO’s office at some point; the ceilings were arched and a large poster bed with veils around the posts took up most of the room, with a small dresser to one side and a large leather couch on the other side, and a bookshelf with a nice book collection in it. A wardrobe with women’s clothes was open and I wondered if Ezekiel had someone get the room ready shortly after we arrived.

The sun was setting and I could see for a few miles from the window, and I reveled in how nice it was, how pretty the room was, but my mind kept going back to the smaller communities that had been lost, and the ones that were left. I could only hope they were alright, but I had at least given the ones that were left some warning. That wasn’t what was really on my mind. After the kingdom, I would bring the runners to Alexandria; I knew it was out of the way and meant doubling back, but the guilt was killing me inside, I could feel it and I needed to tell Daryl as soon as I could. I hated the idea of telling him, of what it would do to him, because I knew it would destroy him on the inside, and the outside. I was kind of hoping he’d take a swing at me; it’d probably make me feel less guilty.

My sleep was uneven and shallow, and I kept having nightmares about Daryl telling me he hated me and never wanted to see me again, that he didn’t love me anymore. I saw other people being killed by faceless men with the red infinity symbol glowing on their foreheads, all while I tried to get to them but an invisible barrier stopped me, stopped my arrows and even the bullets.

I lay awake for hours until the sun came up and I was the first one up and about. I had already loaded up the van with the stuff we were taking from the kingdom, which was a lot less than Negan would be taking, but I wanted the kingdom to have some things left over in case they were attacked. Ezekiel offered to lend a few of his knights to escort us to Alexandria, but I declined. For some reason, I felt like he would need his knights here.

One thing I was secretly glad for was Maria; she decided to stay at the kingdom and I had a feeling it was better for her to get away from us while we were on the road. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going to happen while we were in transit, and the runners could sense my concern. They were tense when we got into the van, some boxes of supplies in the back and a guard on both sides of them, watching the back for someone coming, and I couldn’t play music because it would impair my hearing and attention.

We were a few miles from the Kingdom and about an hour away from Alexandria when I heard it: squealing tires. I lowered my window and aimed my gun at the truck that was coming at us at a breakneck speed, and hit the engine. Smoke poured from the front of the truck and we were past the place where it would have run into us, and I was going faster now, determined to be within sight of Alexandria as fast as I could. Those fucking infinity people were becoming bolder and smarter.

The rest of the drive there was uneventful, other than me vomiting out the window and trying to keep it quiet so we didn’t have the domino effect and a van full of vomiting runners. The closer we got to Alexandria, the more my stomach hated me and rebelled; my stomach in knots and my throat closed, tears threatening the corners of my eyes. About midday, a little after, we arrived at the familiar roadblocks that started out about a mile away from Alexandria, and my heart was pounding in my throat. I was able to hide the worry in my face pretty well, but I wasn’t able to stop the vomit that came up again once I was out of the car. Jared rubbed my back a little bit again, and I swirled some water in my mouth before spitting it out with a faint thank you to Jared and we walked the rest of the way, the runners carrying the boxes with us in case the infinity or others showed up and tried to take it. We couldn’t lose it all again.

Someone had seen us coming and I knew they were wondering where Negan was, until they saw me. I knew that Rick and Daryl still thought I was dead, and so did the rest of the community, though I looked different than the last time they saw me. My hair had grown out some more, and I had lost a little weight, and the scar on my cheek was new and still rather angry-looking. The gate slid open and I walked in, the runners behind me and I had no idea what to say to Daryl, what I was going to do when I saw him. I wanted to hold him and kiss him, but I needed to tell him the truth first.

The gate slid shut behind us and the runners just put the boxes down by the gates; they looked around the nice houses and sniffed the air as the smell of a fresh kill hit them. I heard a familiar gait and looked around to see rick walked towards us, upset, then he stopped immediately when he saw me. Then he turned around and almost ran to the house where the good smell was coming from; I nodded to the runners and they split up. None of them had been to this community before and I forgot they were brand new to the whole runner and collector thing. We’d lost a good portion of our runners when we were attacked, and I had left the more experienced runners behind to keep watch over the sanctuary.

I heard 2 sets of running steps and I looked up and my heart fell out of my throat. Daryl was running at me full steam and we collided hard, so hard I was knocked over and I heard the runners laughing. Daryl’s forehead collided with my shoulder as we lay on the dirty, cold wet ground and I took in his smell, a smell I missed so much: campfire and wet leaves and gasoline. I wrapped my arms around his body and I knew I was crying, shaking and I could feel he was too, his body shaking against mine as he held me. 

“Thought I lost ya,” he finally said and he pulled away from me enough that I could stand up and I could feel the runners looking at us, some with a smirk on their faces like ‘I was totally right.’ I gave them a warning look of what would happen if they told Negan, but none of the runners were that stupid. Pissing me off was worse than an angry Negan, considering they’d seen me torture someone before, and even Negan had been a little put off. I was a force of nature when angered.

Daryl stood up and I was still crying, and he wiped the tears from my face as the runners slowly dispersed, looking around and started having simple conversations with the Alexandrians. They were too young and too new to the sanctuary to know our people that Rick and his people killed; one followed the larger woman, Olivia, into the house and I heard some shouting, excited shouting and the runner came back out with a large gun in his hands, empty with the safety on had the other runners all gathered around him, excited and taking turns touching the holding the heavy gun.

I looked back at Daryl when I realized Olivia would probably babysit the runners, they were like giant kids right now, plus Rick was glaring at them but also unable to look at me or Daryl. Daryl let me go and we walked together and I felt Jared looking at me, but he looked away and started up a random conversation about guns with another runner. 

“Yer alive,” Daryl finally said and I nodded to him and touched his face gently, and I was so happy so see him, until I remembered why I had needed to see him. I had to tell him now, while everyone was distracted and no one would hear us.

I took in a deep breath and looked into Daryl’s blue eyes and felt my will falter for a moment, but I pulled it back. I needed to get this out. I led him into his house, where I knew no one else would be, closed the door behind us and looked at Daryl, staring into his eyes. 

“Daryl, there’s something I need to tell you.”


	2. Confession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aura tells Daryl about her drunken night with Negan. Angst in this chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, forgot to mention, smut warning too. ;)

Daryl stood still, looking at me and I knew this would absolutely destroy him once I told him, and I found myself crying hard before I even had the words out; he took a step back from me and looked terrified for what he was about to hear. I took several steadying breaths, wiping my eyes and looked down, mumbling to the floor as I spoke.

“Daryl, a few weeks ago, Simon was killed. He was my best friend in the sanctuary, and I had to be the one to tell Negan. We ended up drinking to Simon, and kept drinking…and…” I stopped and looked up at Daryl. He didn’t seem to know exactly where this was going, but his hands were no longer on my arms and were crossed in front of his chest, like it would hurt him less if he barricaded his body against what I was about to say. He put his thumb in his mouth and I saw that him chewing on it as I cried, and i could see him slowly putting the pieces together behind his eyes, but he wouldn’t want to accept it, not unless I said it out loud.

“Daryl, I don’t even remember what happened that night. Negan and I ended up drunk, and we…I…I’m so sorry Daryl. I…slept with him, with Negan.”

The silence was intense and charged, and I looked him in the eyes as he looked down and away from me, and he started to pace, his face getting angrier and angrier, and I knew it was only a matter of time before he exploded. I hoped he would, then I wouldn’t feel so bad; I wanted him to punch me actually, it would definitely make me feel better. But I knew Daryl would never lay a hand on me, and I saw him slow his pacing; he looked away from his thumb as it started to bleed and I looked down, my face in my hands as I tried to wipe away my tears to look at him, and force down the vomit that was now trying to get out.

“So, ya fucked him?” Daryl finally said and I could hear his voice slowly rising to a shout. “I’m so sorry Daryl. I can’t forgive myself, and I don’t blame you if you can’t forgive me either,” I said and Daryl looked hard at me, his forehead against mine as he stared me down and my eyes left his to stare at the floor, shame flowing through my veins. “That ain’t what I asked ya,” he finally said in a darker tone than before and I felt a shiver of fear. “Yes, I did.” I said quietly and he paced again, chewing his thumb some more, and I don’t think he knew what he was feeling. A relationship, even one as short as ours, was something obviously new to him. “I had to tell you the truth, Daryl. I couldn’t lie about it, much as I knew it would hurt you,” I said and I knew I sounded desperate. He stopped pacing and looked at me, a blank look on his face.

“I aint dealin’ with this shit. Get out,” he said darkly and quietly and I left the house, wiping my face as fast as I could, and heard the door slam behind me. His roar of anger and sadness was more than I could bear once the door was closed and I slid down a banister, put my head in my hands and screamed out my own pain.

I was aware people were looking at me, but when I looked up, they went about their normal business; even the new community knew better than to piss me off; and certainly not when I was as distraught and hurt as I was now. I got off his porch when I heard him standing near the door and I had a feeling he would yell at me to get my cheating ass off his fucking porch, so I stood up and walked away, heading for the gates where the supplies we had taken were kept. I sat near them, guarding them for something to do, then lay down in the cold, damp grass and looked up at the clear sky, and cried.

I didn’t even know how to deal with this, and I was the one that had brought it on us both. Slowly, everything I felt, anger at being a cheater, regret that I had cheated, disgust that it was Negan of all people, sorrow with how bad I had hurt Daryl, it all came on me at once and I was screaming into the grass, flailing my arms and legs into the dirt and road as I let it all out. I knew someone was watching me, but I dint give a shit. I rolled onto my side after a few minutes, crawled over to a pile of dead leaves and vomited into those. I wiped my mouth, aware that I hadn’t eaten anything in about 24 hours, but with all this vomiting, it was a waste if it all just came back up. Plus, I didn’t think I could with this guilt and anger rolling around in my stomach.

I lay in the grass for hours and was aware the guard changed and some of the runners came to me to see if I was alright, but I would wave them away and tell them to pick an empty house to spend the night. They did pick a house, one far from the Daryl’s house and I was grateful; I didn’t want to hear his angry yells, or worse his crying, cursing anyone who would listen for making him fall for me in the first place. The runners had an idea what Daryl and I had talked about, there had been rumors at the sanctuary about me and Negan for most of the year I had been in his inner circle, but it hadn’t escaped notice how Negan and I were different since Simon died, how I refused to talk to Negan, how it had almost become awkward between us and how I looked like I might break every bone in Negan’s body.

Olivia spoke to the runners cautiously, but invited them for some of the food that Daryl had hunted down, hoping to keep this trip as uneventful as possible. I joined around the fire, not looking at anyone, and not seeing anything, not even when Jared handed me a plate of squirrel stew complete with corn, some kind of potatoes though I wasn’t sure what they were, carrots and pieces of meat. I took the plate, but just pushed the food around with my fork, and eventually just gave it to Carl, told him he needed to eat more because he was a skinny bean pole and it didn’t look very healthy. He took it with a questioning look to his father, but Rick just nodded and I could feel his intense blue eyes staring into the back of my head. I wouldn’t doubt that Daryl had told him, maybe looking for some advice; from what I understood, Rick’s wife had cheated on him, with his best friend, guy named Shane, and Rick had been forced to kill Shane.

I got tired of the stares and the smell, it was starting to get to me for some reason, though it had smelt good a few minutes ago; I got up from around the fire and headed to the house where the runners and I would be staying. I walked into the large house, and felt so alone and empty as I picked a spot on a couch. As one of the shorter Saviors, I could fit on the couch much easier. Besides, I didn’t want to share. I stared at the ceiling, watching as the light faded from yellow to orange to red and finally to gray as the sun set and I heard the runners coming into the house and they looked at me, splayed out on the couch, but walked past, still talking about how this place was so nice and so different from the sanctuary. I pulled myself from the couch and looked at them as they disappeared and shouted to their retreating backs, “this place has running water, and you all stink. Everyone’s taking a shower before we leave tomorrow.”

I could hear running footsteps and the sounds of several faucets turning on, like they weren’t sure if I was telling the truth. Someone got into the shower upstairs and someone else was in the shower down the hall from where I lay on the couch, emotionally exhausted. I eventually got up and poured some water for myself and downed several glasses before collapsing back on the couch, more tears falling down my face. I couldn’t believe what I had done, what I had done to Daryl and to me, to us; I covered my face with a pillow as I screamed and cried some more, the guys upstairs talking loudly and someone was singing as they took a shower, very off key. 

I must have fallen into a shallow sleep sometime when I had the pillow over my face, because someone was waking me up, shaking my shoulder, and I jumped from bed, knife in hand and I realized I had Daryl against the wall, my knife at his neck. I quickly pulled away and looked down, wiping my face again when I looked away from him. He took a step forward, and it was obvious he’d been drinking, a lot. He stumbled as he took a few steps away from the wall and I had to catch him as he fell when his foot caught on a table leg. He reeked of booze, maybe scotch or whiskey, and his bloodshot eyes weren’t just from the tears I had caused him. I set him on the couch to get his bearings, but he couldn’t be found in here, not with the other saviors, they might attack him. Well, probably not, but it wouldn’t be pretty. Or the runners might just demand the rest of the booze Daryl had in his hand. Probably that last one.

Daryl stood up from the couch and I backed away from him, aware he was angry, his face beyond pissed at me as he looked down at me, his blue-gray eyes stabbing into my face and soul. It hurt, it hurt a lot as I backed up and before I knew it, I was against the wall and Daryl was standing just inches from me, looking down at me and I wasn’t sure what he was thinking, if he was thinking anything. He just stood there, mostly empty bottle in his hands, staring at me for what felt like over an hour. I wasn’t sure how long it was, but he just sniffled, and I could see he wanted to cry occasionally, a tear would leak out as he looked at me; he finally moved and put his left arm up against the wall behind me so he boxed me in with his body and I could feel his heat coming off him, and the booze wafting off his shirt and breath. It was a wonder I didn’t get a contact drunk, with how strong he smelled.

Daryl finally pulled back from me and pulled on my hand and I followed him, walking out the house and to his own, while I was semi-pulled behind him, confused, worried and catching him at least once while he stumbled in his drunken stupor. At his house, he walked in first and I followed him, and he shut the door behind me. He eyed me, looking at me like he was sizing me up, like the very first time we had met in the woods a few months ago. It felt like years ago we first met, but it was barely a full season. Daryl walked around me and into his house and collapsed on his couch, and refused to look at me as I stood in the hallway, unsure why he brought me here, what he wanted to do. I was prepared for him to yell at me, scream, tell me it was all over and he never wanted to see my cheating ass again.

What I didn’t expect was Daryl to get up, leave the booze on a coffee table and walk up to me and kiss me hard. He pushed me against the wall behind me and I tripped over something on the ground as he held my shoulders to the wall, moving his own body to completely trap me between the wall and his large frame. I was staring at him as he kissed me, completely confused, but after a few seconds, I thought, what the hell…

I met up with his kiss and barely a second later, he pulled away and pinned me to the wall by my neck and stared me down. His hand was rough on the delicate skin of my neck, hard enough that it hurt a little bit, but not hard enough for it to bruise or cut off my air. “Who do ya want?” he said in his deep gravely tone, his accent heavy in his lust and drunken state. “You, Daryl Dixon. I only want you,” I said, tears falling down my face again. “Who’s are ya?” Daryl asked and I looked at him, a bit surprised by this sudden possessiveness, but ran with it. “I’m yours, Daryl. Only yours,” I said breathlessly as his lips ghosted over my jaw while I spoke. His hand slid down from my neck to my shoulders then my waist.

“Then yer gonna show it,” Daryl said and I was confused for a moment until his lips latched into my neck, biting and sucking on my skin, leaving a large hickey. He moved all over my neck, doing the same thing and after just a few moments I was a mess, panting as his hands worked up and down my sides, sliding into my hair, fingers running up and down my spine that gave me goosebumps and sent intense spasms between my legs.

He pulled away from my neck and looked at his handiwork, my neck polka dotted with purple and red hickeys and glistening from his lips and tongue. I looked back at him, not sure if he wanted to go farther or if he was just proving his point, until he pulled me by my hand again and dragged me up the stairs to where his room was. He pushed the door open, pulled me inside then kicked it shut with his shoe as he pulled off his jacket and vest then his shirt. He stood before me, more muscular than I had seen him last time I was here, and a little thinner looking, his hair longer and flecks of gray in his chest hair. New scars littered his chest and back as he walked towards me and I backed up until my legs hit the bed and I sat down. It was like the last time I was here, and like nothing had happened: rick never turned me in, I never made a deal, and I never slept with Negan.

Daryl shoved me down onto the bed and I felt another powerful spasm in my lower body as my panties slowly started to soak themselves and I pulled my shirt over my head. Daryl took in my own new scars, the one across my cheek that still was a little red and itchy, and the ones from that boar a few months ago, when I walked Daryl through surgery on my own body. He kissed and licked them, not as gentle as I had been so long ago, but I still closed my eyes and enjoyed the sensations. His lips found my nipples and I gasped at the warm sensations. He wasn’t as gentle as he had been in the past, but I assumed the alcohol was making him lose some control. Whatever, I wasn’t going to complain.

As he worked on my stiff nipples, I unbuttoned his pants and pushed them down, revealing his hard member, already leaking and eager, then I pushed down my pants and boots, hearing them hit something in the darkness, but I couldn’t care at all as Daryl lifted his face from my chest and looked down at me again. My hand slid down his chest, his carved abs, to his cock and I touched it and I heard him hiss slightly at the long-missed sensation. He looked down at me, pulled my hand away from his cock and looked down at me, rubbed between my folds and looked at the wetness already there. He smirked and I knew he felt accomplished that I was so excited for him; he looked back down, lined himself up and carefully slid in.

I gasped at the feeling, like I had been a puzzle missing an important piece and now it was there, inside me. I gripped Daryl’s shoulders as he started a slow, deep pace and I gasped every time he was in as deep as he could go, the tip of his cock touching something deep inside me, and I realized it was something that only he would ever be able to touch. He picked up his pace, his grunts and groans getting louder and I dug my fingernails into his back as I tried to hold onto him, my lower stomach already curling up tight and my own breathing was faster and ragged. Daryl’s lips and teeth nibbled and bit onto my neck and upper chest again, leaving more marks as I felt him twitching inside, me and I knew he was almost there. My own orgasm was moments away and I looked him in the eyes, so happy to see him, and his eyes met mine, no more anger or doubt in them.

We came together with a shout and I fell back, my legs twitching as I felt the warmth of Daryl’s seed filling me up, coating my walls, and it felt so good, so right. He pulled out of me after several long and wonderful minutes, then collapsed on the bed next to me, pulling my body close to his so not even a strand of hair could move between us, and I rolled over and looked at him, my eyes glittering with faint, happy tears and I touched his face, wanting him to look at me again. He did, and I could see he was on the verge of tears too; no one had broken my walls like him, and I don’t think anyone had broken his walls like me. I was just so happy to have him back, I didn’t even mind when he passed out, his body over mine and I had to push him off so I could breathe properly.

I pulled the blankets up to cover us so we could get some sleep and I hoped the nightmares would be gone. Daryl still wanted me, he made me his again, showing it on the neck and by filling me with his warm cum. I could feel it slowly leaking from me, down my leg and onto the sheets, and it felt so wonderful to feel that again. I looked at Daryl and he exhaled hard and I nearly gaged at the smell of booze on his breath. As I lay beside him and scooted closer to him, I thought about how drunk he was, and a faint hole of doubt edged into my mind. This was while he was drunk, like shit-faced drunk; how would he feel once he was sober? Would he still want me or would he say he got drunk to forget me, not wake up next to me and crush me after picking me up again? I knew that I deserved it, after what I put him through. No one got through his walls, no one, but I had, and I had destroyed him with so few words and something I didn’t even remember. 

I rolled over, looking at the wall, not able to look at Daryl, because the longer I didn’t see his face, the longer he still wanted me and the longer I felt like he loved me. I pulled the covers over my head and closed my eyes, thinking about what had just happened, the great sex, Daryl’s forgiveness and claiming me back by marking my neck for all to see and filling me up. The doubt that had been growing in my mind faded away for a moment, long enough for me to sleep, but my last thought before sleep finally took me still had be on edge.

Will he feel the same in the morning?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Booze let Daryl forgive Aura, but will he still forgive her once the alcohol wears off? And why is she vomiting all the time? Hope you all are liking this so far. I know this was a lot shorter than the last chapter, but this felt like the best spot to start a new chapter. Luv4ual!!!


	3. Forgiveness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aura finally sees how Daryl feels about her once his hangover is gone. Get ready for feels.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fluff!!! And some filler.

The sun hit my face hard and I rolled over, not wanting to get out this big, comfy bed. I felt a hard body next to me, and someone snoring loudly. I moved my hand around with my eyes closed, feeling for the mouth to stop the snoring so I could fall back asleep. Small tufts of scruff slid under my fingers and I opened my eyes, remembering the last time I had done something like this. Daryl looked back at me, his eyes still hazy from sleep, but he was quickly gaining back his senses, and he looked me up and down, staring me, his eyes burrowing into my soul as he did. He looked at my swollen lips from kissing, the many, many marks on my neck and collarbone area from his teeth and lips, and felt the leaking juices I had let out while I rolled around in my sleep. The bed smelt like sex, cum, my own juices and sweat; he pulled the blanket off his body and sat up, looking at me and I looked up too, my face blank, ready for the rejection and anger that would come now he was sober. I braced myself for it as he looked me over again and again, his face slowly getting more intense, his eyes burning with something as his eyes stayed on my neck.

He moved away from me and pulled on his clothes, then tossed me mine and I forced back a sob as he made for the door without a word. He suddenly turned around, stuck his rough hands in my hair, pulled me up and kissed me again. I didn’t meet him this time, he kissed me so hard and fast I didn’t have time for my mind or body to catch up to him. He let me go and I gasped out as he was about to disappear, “I’m so sorry Daryl.” I had tears in my eyes again ad I looked at him pleading for him to tell me something, anything that would let me know how he felt, that if he was pissed at me and that was a goodbye kiss or he forgave me or something. He looked down at his boots as he laced his pants over them, then looked up at me and I felt my breath catch in my throat.

His eyes had nothing but love in them.

“I know. I lost ya once, I aint losin’ ya again,” he said and disappeared through the door.

I knew what he meant; I may have to return to the sanctuary, but his heart would be mine and my heart would be his. I would never let myself be manipulated again, not even for that deal. I could never do that to myself or Daryl ever again.

I got up from bed and hoped into the shower and noticed that he had almost no products in his room, but he didn’t strike me as someone that would anyway. He had some body wash, smelt like Axe for men, and some all in 1 hair stuff. I used one of his clothes and washed myself in the shower, enjoying the warmth of the water on my sore and ill body. I hadn’t been able to eat much the last few days without worrying it’d come back up. But now that Daryl had forgiven me and I had told him the truth, that worry and guilt was off my shoulder; I sighed happily and turned off the wonderfully warm water and knew the runners would wonder where I had gone off to, and I didn’t want to make a scene with Daryl right off in the morning.

By the time I was outside, the runners had already collected some of the Alexandria things, but like at the last community, had left a decent amount behind. Rick and Daryl had already heard about the smaller communities the runners and I had been too, and how so many had already been wiped out, or at least attacked. I told Rick and Daryl about the attack on the sanctuary, even how Negan had been stabbed and Daryl looked at my cheek as I told them about my own injury. I handed Rick a band from one of the attackers I had killed, and informed them that the Infinity people liked staking places out, attacked randomly but had no guns to speak up. They might have gotten some from the communities in the woods, since they had a few shotguns for hunting, but not as much as Alexandria or the sanctuary had. Daryl was still thinking about how Negan wasn’t allowed to leave the sanctuary for some time, on my orders as his doctor. He just loved the idea of me bossing him around. Rick was angry I had saved his life, and I thought that sometimes I should have let him die, but with this new enemy, we needed Negan, as much as I hated to admit it.

I looked at Rick and I knew he was planning some kind of attack on Negan once enough people joined and planning had been done, I could see it in his eyes and the way he talked to me. And I knew that I would need to choose a side once that time came, and the infinity were no longer an issue; it wouldn’t be hard for me to choose Rick and Daryl over Negan, as long as they weren’t out to kill all the saviors and members of the sanctuary they could get their hands on, only Negan and his supporters that wouldn’t bend to new leadership. I already had an idea who that might be, but I certainly wasn’t among them, and I still had the support of most people in the sanctuary. If I picked a side, most people would follow it, I just needed the best time to do so, one that ensured the least amount of casualties.

I was pulled back to reality when Rick and Daryl looked at me and Jared had come in looking for me, then looked at the large map on the table. I had crossed off the communities that had been wiped out and I could tell Jared was a little bit sad about that. He had a similar view to life as I did, one that meant as little war and fighting as possible, one that involved working together, not lording over people. A lot of people felt that way in the sanctuary, eve with the stuff that was taken from other communities, they disliked the violence that Negan brought to other communities, and to his own people, all the time. His point system was skewed, so was the power system, and everything in the sanctuary had a kind of corrupt feeling oozing from it late. Negan had removed the cheaper breakfast option I had put into place, shortly before he left and I knew he did that just to piss me off, and to prove that he was higher than me, and because of the deal I made, I would have to talk to him in private about it. But I knew he’d never do it.

Jared looked at me and then at Daryl, and I could see him forming the relationship in his head and I looked at him, sighed, and nodded. “Goddammit,” he said and I raised an eyebrow at him. “Jimmy was the one that thought it was the archer. Dammit, he’s never gonna let this go,” he said as he disappeared around the corner and I was confused for a moment, then realized Jared was talking about a bet. They must’ve taken bets on which guy I was with when I was here. Simon would’ve told them how I acted when I was leaving, like a girl dumped on prom night, arriving at the party to see her date never showed up. They must’ve figured out that I was with someone, seeing someone. I just hoped Negan never really knew, or he might come after Daryl just to piss me off some more, knowing I wouldn’t be able to fight back. I would keep my deal, as long as he kept his, but once he backed down on his side, and I was sure he would eventually, I would call the deal defaulted and drill him a new asshole.

Jared and the rest of the runners were ready to go; we were going to hit a small town on the way to Wiltshire and Springfield. It had bene overrun with walkers last time we got close, but we hoped they moved on, maybe following the sound of a far off gunshot or something, or joining another herd and just walking somewhere else. It was a nice sized town and had a hardware store, pharmacy and bar, along with a small clinic where I wanted to see if I could find some more medical supplies, maybe some batteries for the portable ultrasound I had scavenged half a year ago. The ultrasound had died a few months ago, right around the time I went on the run with Ryan, Dwight and Michelle, and I had hoped to find some batteries on the way back to the sanctuary before we were separated. We packed up the boxes, taking a lot less than normal, and I knew it would piss off Negan, but with the threat of the infinity around, the other communities needed some supplies too. I couldn’t stand to lose more people than I already had.

We walked to the van, and were happy to find it still there and nothing had been taken, not even gas, and piled in. Daryl had walked us to the van, worried that someone might be watching and waiting for us to leave, but I had my gun, my long knives, my bow and the other runners had their weapons too. I was kind of hoping that some infinity people would show up, so we could take a few more prisoners back to the sanctuary and get some more information out of them; none of them had given up their leader, where they were or even how many they had, only saying they were infinite in number, but that was impossible. A few hundred was more likely, maybe the same size or larger than the sanctuary, but without knowing where they were, it was impossible to strategize. The runner watched and the runner named Jimmy was chortling as Daryl left a kiss on my cheek and Jared snickered then turned red when I looked at him. I pulled Daryl back into a long, hard kiss and the runners let out faint wolf-whistles and I could see Daryl blushing a little bit under his long hair and it was adorable. The runners were either whistling or laughing as I got into the driver’s seat and we drove off, and I looked back one more time to see Daryl had disappeared into the woods.

“Good to see you finally with someone,” one of the runners said and I looked at him in the rearview mirror. “What do you mean?” I asked him and he looked at the others and finally Jimmy, winner of the bet, spoke up. “He means that we knew you were seeing someone, but no one knew who. We all took bets who it was. And, we think it’s good you’re letting yourself be happy,” Jimmy said the last part rather fast and I met his eyes in the rearview mirror and smiled. “Thanks,” I said faintly.

We drove through the roads and like I knew we would, we had to double back to get to Springfield and Wiltshire, but it wasn’t bad, except when we stopped so I could puke in the bushes. Man, I wish I knew what was wrong with me. We didn’t even run into many walkers on the road at first it worried me, thinking maybe the infinity had been through here and had either killed them or were taking them for another attack somewhere, but when we got to Wiltshire, we found everything as it had been. Large metal sheets were linked with welded rods and dirt was heaved against it on both sides to keep the sheets in place. Wiltshire was a small, gated community, had about 50 or so people in it, so it wasn’t that small but compared to some of the others, it was small.

I met the leader like with the Kingdom and Eagle’s Perch and Black Pearl, and told them about the new threat and the other communities already lost and taken down. He seemed angry at me and my own people for this, saying they were giving up half their shit for protection, not for some other group to come and wipe them out. I let him rant and rave angrily, because I knew he wanted to get it all off his chest, then I told him to keep an eye out, we’d be back in a week, probably without Negan, and if they found someone from infinity to bring them to an outpost so Negan could interrogate them. I also told him we wouldn’t be taking half their shit for a while, not with winter so close.

Snow was falling when I left Wiltshire and the runners were anxious to get back on the road and check out the town we were hoping it look through. The sun was about midday, and it would take about an hour of driving to get to Springfield from here, so we had a few hours to check this place out. The runners and I spread out, but keeping in sight and shouting distance of one another and found that most of the walkers, save those trapped in rooms or behind barricades, had moved on. We took out the walkers we did see and made our way from room to room, checking for hollowed out walls, above dropped ceiling tiles and in vents, looking for anything that could be used. I found a gun hidden in a safe that I broke open without much issue, just a well-placed knife in the hinges. Man, cheap safe. I also found some ammo, and a lot of money but that was worthless now, though I did like the jewelry I found in there. Sherry might like the earrings. Of all the wives, I got along with Sherry the best, but most people did anyway. She was a very nice person.

I pocketed the earrings and walked through the store, found nothing else and moved onto the the next one, a kind of pharmacy corner store, a Walgreens, though most of the food was either gone or shattered onto the floor, some things remained behind, including some kitchen knives and a set of sharpeners, hygiene products and tampons. I took all the pads and tampons I could fit in my bag; we went through those like crazy with over 100 women at the sanctuary. My eyes spied some pregnancy tests too, left over with the pleasure lotion and cream for yeast infections. I took it all, but in the back of my mind, I wondered. No, that wasn’t possible. 

I made my way out of the tore to find the others had finished their scrounging. We piled into the van with some good hauls, and felt glad we came, then we turned left and headed for Springfield.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all are liking this, its fun for me to write. It's going to get more intense from here. Luv4uall!


	4. Confrontation at Springfield

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arriving at Springfield, a place Aura tries to avoid because it's completely male and the leader is a woman hater, she and the other Saviors runners learn of a very dark secret the leader is hiding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: lots of triggers in this one. Mentions of rape and torture, actual torture, and graphic violence.  
> YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Springfield was surrounded by wooden log fences all the way around and enclosed about 3 suburban blocks, including houses, 2 bars, a small shopping center and a large empty square where meetings where held. I hated this place above all others for one simple reason: it was completely all men. And only 2 of them were gay. It made my situation rather dangerous, but the only other times I had been here had been with Negan.

We rolled up to Springfield and it was getting close to afternoon, about 3 or 4 if I had to guess, and the sun was starting to set. With winter coming close, as far as I could tell it was mid to late November, days were short and the daylight was scarce. The square was full of men as they worked to get things done in the short daylight hours and they were waiting for us. This was normally the time of week that the saviors would come pick up from Springfield anyway.

Their leader was a misogynistic asshole, even worse than Negan if that was possible, but it was true. He held the very old and outdated belief that women were mean to be barefoot and pregnant, staying in the house and being a slave to the husband. He got under my skin on multiple occasions, almost every time he opened his mouth and said something he rubbed me the wrong way. Unfortunately for him, Negan had always been around when he wanted to get me alone and tell me something, and Negan had hated him too. More than once, I offered to kill him, let someone less of an egotistical bastard take over, but Negan had just laughed and told me to wait outside the community. It wasn’t because he held the same views, or suddenly thought I wasn’t helpful; it was actually for my own safety. I was probably the first woman the entire community had seen in weeks, and Negan was worried about setting them off into a frenzy. He had 20 saviors with him, and more than enough firepower, but he didn’t want to provoke the entire compound into all-out war. It would be very bloody.

The other runners with me could sense my unease coming into Springfield, mostly because they were all rather young, inexperienced and kind of small-looking if I was honest. A few of them were barely 20, and looked like high school students. Not exactly the kind of guys to keep 40+ horny guys at bay. My goal was to get in, tell the leader about everything, collect and be out in an hour. Nothing else.  
Nothing ever goes as planned anymore.

Almost as soon as we entered the community, I knew something was wrong, and so did a few of the more observant runners, mostly Jared and a smaller kid name Devin. He was small but he had the mind of a hunter and was light on his feet, and flexible as hell, though not as flexible as me. We entered the compound and everyone was waiting for us and I could see the tension on some faces, and almost a sign of relief on others. A few members of Springfield looked at me, almost pleading with their faces and I could tell they wanted me to do something, and I had a suspicion they wanted me to save someone.

Instantly, I was at the leader, a grade A asshole named Tony, he kind of looked like Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, the Disney cartoon version. He was very handsome, muscular, though even more conceited, and brutal, willing to do anything to get his way. He reminded me of Negan, though their views on women were the main difference. Negan had at least some respect for women, and gave them a chance to be just as good as a man in his eyes. Tony never did. And I noticed a few, faint, small scratches under his shirt when I went to talk to him while the runners collected the goods and loaded them into the van; they were on his neck and I knew the angle of them, the way they looked. Defensive wounds, as someone was pinned under him; commonly found on men that forced themselves on women, as the women clawed at the neck and face to get away from their attacker.

My blood boiled and I could hear something, sounded faintly like crying, or some kind of moaning, and it was female. I kept my face even, not showing him anything, then warned him about the Infinity and the danger they posed.

There was no usual banter with tony; he normally, the few times I had spoken to him, tried to get under my skin and made all kinds of comments about me being a woman, and a woman of considerable power. This time there was nothing, not a single word about me, about Negan, not even a ‘undressing me with his eyes’ glance he normally gave me. He stared at some papers on his desk, moving a map around and just nodding to me when I spoke to him. Finally, after a few tense moments, and a muffled sob reaching my ears through the vents, I was done.

“Where is she?” I asked him and he looked up at me, confused. He obviously hadn’t been listening to me talk and the question took him off-guard.

“Pardon, bitch?” he asked and there was the Tony I remembered. I glared at him and I could see the vein in his temple twitching. I pulled out a knife, lightning fast and stabbed it through his right hand, locking him to the desk. He screamed in pain and I thought he was being a pussy about it. I pulled out the knife and he tried to grab his gun on his belt, but I threw the knife and it landed into his shoulder, down to the hilt, and I could hear the blade rubbing against the bone as he tried to take it out. In a flash, I was over the desk, and I yanked out the bloody blade and slammed his head onto the desk, taking all his weapons and searching his pockets. The runners had come to the sounds of his screaming, and so had some of his men; the runners threatened the men with their guns then one of them spoke up. “Key’s in his pocket,” he said and I looked up at him then dug into bleeding, crying mess that was Tony’s pockets, and warped my hand around an old fashioned skeleton key.

The man that had spoken looked at the other men and they all kind of just understood. It looked like it hadn’t been sitting quiet well with most of them, and I was glad that the men were halfway decent still, despite the world we now lived in. I pulled out the key and looked around for the matching door, then followed the vents through a few halls and ended up in what had to be Tony’s bedroom. The bed was nicer than I expected, with pictures of hot women lining the walls, and lots of porn mags all over the furniture. I spotted a whip, riding crops and several gags on a bedside table and I could see the faint shine of fresh blood on the whip’s end. A knife with dried blood rested on the bed and looked like Tony had been licking it ad I felt myself gaging. I vomited onto Tony’s bed, just to piss him off, though if I found what I thought he had here, I wouldn’t let him live.

The skeleton key in my hand, I followed the sounds of the crying, and then it suddenly stopped when I got near a closet. I pulled the door open and I heard fresh muffled screams, someone was panicking as I got closer to them. I looked around the closet, looking for maybe a hidden door or a lock, and found a painted door that looked like wall except it had a keyhole in it. The screaming got louder, but it was hard to tell if they were trying to say something; something was in their mouth. I unlocked the door slowly, and pulled the door open, and a light turned on automatically. I looked inside, seeing the sight and smelling the stench, and I ran out and vomited on Tony’s bed again.

The woman looked to be about mid-late 30s, long dirty brown hair that was matted, filled with leaves, blood and wax. Her body was black, blue and yellow with bruises all in different stages of healing. One of her eyes was swollen shut, her lip was busted and her nose looked broken. Her shoulder was sticking out at an odd angle, and looked to be dislocated. Lashes from the whip covered her back, legs and bare breasts, and she was completely naked, sitting in what looked to be her own excrement. Large hand prints around her neck looked fresh, less than a few hours old and I could smell dried and fresh semen on her as I slowly got near her and pulled the gag from her mouth.

She instantly starting crying, begging for my help. And all I saw was red.

I told her to wait here while I went to get someone to help; she didn’t want to be left alone, but I told her to wait, promised I would be back and I needed to clean up some piece of shit first. To emphasize, I pulled out my gun, checked the ammo in the clip and cocked the gun, ready for use. She reeled back from me, and I could tell she had been hit over the head with a pistol at least once already; I wrapped a blanket around her fast then stormed back to where the runners were watching the wounded and angry tony.

“The fuck you fucking bit…” tony started but was cut off when I landed a very hard and mean right cross to his jaw. He fell over, hitting his head on the desk and I pulled him up, not wanting to let this lesson go to waste; I hammered his head into the desk again and he fell down, grabbing at his bleeding mouth and nose as I grabbed my gun and pointed it at the men that were looking on.

“Who knew?” I shouted and the runners looked from me, angrier than they had ever seen, to the other men. As some of them shifted slightly I could tell who knew and who didn’t. I raised my gun, my aim perfect in my anger and ruthlessness and pulled the trigger. Once, twice, 3 times. 3 men that I knew had known and hadn’t cared about it, maybe even participated, dripped to the ground, spraying some blood and brain matter on the men next to them. I heard shouting, anger, rage, then the sounds of the runners raising and aiming their guns. The rage and anger subsided, the men of Springfield knew they wouldn’t have a chance to fight against the runners with their firepower. Springfield had maybe 3 guns with ammo in them, the rest were just for show, and I had one of them in my back pocket, taken from the whimpering Tony who was writhing at my feet.

The runners were confused as they looked from me to the other men to Tony, who was trying to get up from his spot on the ground, but every time he tried, I kicked him in the chest, stomach or nuts to get him back down. After a few minutes of this, I was done, and I could feel more vomit wanting to come up and the need to get the poor woman out of that closet and to the doctor at Hilltop.

“Count yourself lucky, you self-serving bastard,” I said to him as I cocked the gun again for effect and he looked up at me, his face almost as bloody and beaten as that poor woman he was holding captive. “If Negan found out, he’d beat your body to a pulp, one piece at a time. But I’m in a hurry,” I said with a final note, standing over him and pulled the trigger. The loud bang was final and echoed in the large office space, and I could hear the sound of relieved crying through the vents. I bet the woman heard everything. I would bring her past Tony’s dead body, let her see it, to give her a small sense of closure, before taking her to the doc; I could treat her wounds, but the med kit I normally carried with me had been in the truck, and was stolen back at the Black Pearl. There was no way in hell we were spending the night here, not with the woman as injured as she was; I’d drive in the dark, I didn’t care.

I took a hard step and crushed Tony’s balls under my foot before I nodded to the runners, the signal we were about to leave. I motioned for Jared to come with me and he followed me down the halls to that closet, where the woman was trying to get herself free, but she froze when she saw Jared, then tried to climb over me when o got to her.

“It’s going to be better now. We’ll take you out of here and get you to a doctor,” I said and cut her ropes, pulled her to my body and I could smell the infection on her from several feet away. Even if we treated her wounds, there were so few antibiotics left, I wasn’t sure she’d live longer than a week. I wasn’t sure she wanted to right now. I turned to Jared, who was holding a hand to his nose, both at the smell and the idea of what was in front of him. I kicked his foot a tiny bit and he picked up the poor woman and carried her away, the sounds of her faint, “thank you’s” fading as they disappeared. I looked back at the closet, then turned from it before dumping all those terrible toys into it and dropping a lighter to the wood.

The fire didn’t spread far, it wasn’t hot enough and everything was damp with excrement and blood, but it made me feel a little better at least. I turned to the room, and felt the vomit coming up once again, and again vomited onto Tony’s bed. I took a sip of water and washed my mouth out before spitting it out onto Tony’s floor, and closed the bedroom door behind me.

Jared wasn’t walking as fast as normal, as the woman clung to his neck and body, desperate to get away and to hold onto anything that wasn’t hurting her. He waited for me to come from the hall and then we walked together, my hand on the woman’s shoulder, when Tony’s bloody and broken body came into view. A sigh escaped from the woman’s mouth and I knew she felt relief, justice, and a kind of peace, knowing that man would never hurt her again. He would never hurt anyone again.

The men of Springfield looked away when I walked past them, leading Jared and the exhausted woman to the van. It roared to life and even though it was sunset, and dark would soon envelope us, I wasn’t going to make the woman stay here anymore. Hell, I couldn’t stay here anymore. We pulled out of the community, and I nodded to the man that had given me the tip about where to find the key. He just looked away from me and I knew that I intimidated him, though I intimidated most of men here. I drove through the wooden gates of Springfield, and soon the entire community was gone from the rearview mirror.

The woman had stopped crying once she could no longer see the community and I could see her exhaustion, her relief and she soon fell asleep, her head resting on Jared’s shoulder and eh seemed to be enjoying it, despite the smell and terrible circumstances. He patted her head, taking care to avoid the large knots that rose from under her matted hair, then just held her in place as I picked up my speed, heading as fast as I could to Hilltop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not the prettiest chapter, but I thought I wanted to show that Aura is capable of killing, if it's needed, and that she can be ruthless if she's pushed. Like I said before, she's a badass. Hope you're all liking it so far. Luv4uall!


	5. Returning Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aura and the runners arrive at the Hilltop, then head back to the Sanctuary, where Aura waits to read the result of a very important test.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mentions of rape/non-con, though brief and kind of glossed over. Still thought it was worth a warning.

It was dark, pitch black, the moon hidden behind clouds and no stars or other light to lead the way, other than the headlights of the crappy van I now drove slowly through the woody country. It would be a few hours before we got within sight of Hilltop, and the others were already sleeping, though I couldn’t sleep. All I kept thinking about, other than the poor woman now curled up against Jared’s side, was the constant sickness that was plaguing me. I had thought it was a stomach flu or something, but it hadn’t spread to anyone else, and it should have by now. The only other thing I could think of was some kind of ulcers. Given the stress I’d been under the last few months it wouldn’t surprise me. There was one other option, but I refused to even consider it. But I had considered it, when I pushed those woman’s products and tests into my bag.

No, I couldn’t be…

I was jarred from my thoughts, and was never so glad to see a few walkers in the middle of the road to bang against the van and get my attention away from my thoughts. I drove around them easily enough though it woke up everyone else in the back, except the woman. I imagined she never had a chance to sleep while she was captive under Tony’s thumb, and now that she felt safe, with her captor and tormentor dead, she was able to let her weary mind and body rest. If it was summertime, I’d have stopped at a creek or water body and let her wash up in there; but with ice and snow sticking to the ground, it would only give her hypothermia. And we didn’t need any other issues.

The woman slept the entire drive there, and it was still pitch black out when we got near the first lookout post that Jesus had set up when he heard about the Infinity. Gregory hadn’t done shit, like he normally did, and I was grateful that at least some people in the Hilltop had common sense. I could see the faint outline of the outposts in the trees, almost hidden but to my hunter eyes I could see them, even in the blackness. I rolled down the window slightly and as I drove slower, I heard the sounds of whistles and the crackle of a walkie. They knew we were coming. I pulled over, and motioned for the guard to come talk to me. He shined a light on my face and I could see some relief in them. Savior or not, I wasn’t an unwelcome face at most communities, especially considering the friendly banter I had with Jesus everytime I saw him.  
I asked him to radio in to wake up the doc, the poor woman needed to be looked at soon. Even with the window rolled down, I could still smell puss, the unmistakable smell of infection, coming from where she slept, Jared looked at me sleepily. He hadn’t moved in hours with the woman on top of him. I think he was afraid to wake her up. I thought she might go into panic mode if she woke up. I remembered some torture of my own, though mine hadn’t been rape like hers, but it still left marks: internal, external, and psychological.

The guard radioed ahead and I knew that aside from the doc being awake, Jesus would be awake now too, wanting to know the latest news. Negan never told anyone shit, but Jesus, King Ezekiel and now Rick could rely on me to spread important information. The silhouette of the Hilltop came into view as the ground go slick with snow and ice and I knew we’d need to walk from here, not something I was looking forward to. But I knew it’d be even worse for the poor woman.

I opened the back slowly and the woman’s head lolled to the side as she lost her support before she opened her eyes in a panic and lashed out at me, trying to claw my face with her nails. I grabbed her hands gently and let her calm down as some flashlights hit my face, her eyes still bulging from her head, but after a few short breaths, she got ahold of herself. She curled in deeper against Jared and I looked at him. He looked unwilling to leave the woman alone, and he looked ready to fight me on it.

“Jared, take her with you and go meet the doc. He should be awake and ready by now. We’ll follow up with the supplies,” I said to him and the woman held me tight, I knew she was trying to thank me. She didn’t want to be left alone, and I couldn’t blame her; I bet Tony had her locked in that little room by herself in the dark for hours or days at a time. Jared picked up the woman and carried her bridal style up the steep hill, through the snow and slippery slope, and he disappeared into the swallowing darkness. It had to be close to midnight, but with clouds blocking the moon and stars, there was no real way to tell time. It really didn’t matter, if I was honest, but it always bugged me for some reason. Conditioning I guess, form before the turn, when time was the most important thing and was never to be wasted or lost. The same was true now, time was important, but knowing what time it was, every second of every day, wasn’t as nearly important as what was done with that time: killing walkers, gathering supplies, choosing and fighting battles, all that took most of our time now, including mine.

I helped the rest of the runners carry the supplies up the hill to the community and found that everyone was still sound asleep, which was a tempting idea, though I wasn’t sure I’d be able to. Lately, most of my sleep was broken when I woke up to vomit every few hours, or a nightmare forced me awake, always a memory of what I’d seen or done. The supplies fit in our packs much better than the boxes, though it was slow going up the steep hill, through the shallow snow that made the ground underneath slippery with ice and mud.

It took about half an hour to make it up the hill and found the gate was already open a small bit, Jesus waiting on the other side. He nodded to me and I nodded back, then set out stuff down as we stretched our sore shoulders from the supplies. It wasn’t as much as we normally had from supply runs, but losing most of it to the infinity a week ago was the cause. Jesus looked at the fresh faces, young, younger than me and I felt old all of a sudden as I realized I was the oldest, and the veteran of the group. Dammit, I felt old now.

I looked away from the other runners and told them to find empty rooms in the mansion at the top of the hill, we’d spend the night here and see what the woman was going to do in the morning. She might want to stay here with the other refugees from smaller communities, or remain with Jared. It was up to her.

“you look like shit,” Jesus finally said and I looked at him, annoyed, then let out a faint laugh. “I know. Being robbed will do that. And I found out about Springfield’s big secret. Tony had a hostage,” I said plainly and Jesus understood without me needing to go onto too many details. He could feel the anger coming off me. 

“I assume Negan will hear about it?” Jesus said and he crossed his arms. I shrugged my shoulders. “He will, but it won’t matter. Tony’s already taken care of. Don’t look at me like that. You met him, right? You knew what he was like. I thought Negan would’ve killed him long ago.” I crossed my arms when I looked at Jesus, a disapproving look on his face when I told him Tony was dead. “I suppose you’re right. Those people are better off with a different leader.” Jesus admitted it to me more than himself. I nodded to him and we walked side by side to the mansion.

I heard the doc already up, looking at the woman and was surprise to see someone else was already on a table, waiting to be see. She had dark hair, cut short like a Pixie cut, a cute nose, deep eyes and a thick country accent. I thought I knew her from somewhere, but wasn’t sure. Then I saw the man she was with, a handsome Asian man and it clicked. The pregnant couple from Alexandria, and friends of Daryl; Glenn and Maggie, and baby.

My heart jumped when I thought the word baby and I could feel some vomit coming up again. I walked out the mansion and found the closest bushes and vomited into them for several long minutes, though all that came up was water and bile. I hadn’t been able to keep much down in over a week and it was showing. My skin was paler, and I felt like shit warmed over with bags under my eyes, and it looked like my hair was becoming brittle, and so were my nails. I thought I should try to get some sleep, then see the doc in the morning about my constant vomiting. With the infinity always around, and war looming, I couldn’t afford to be out for the count.

I picked a room on the 2nd floor and could hear the other runners picking rooms, some of them sharing because they didn’t want to be alone. Though it seemed unmanly of them, after spending so much time close to one another, it was hard being apart from the people that you trusted most. I picked a room on my own and tossed my pack to the floor near a nightstand, then looked back at it when something fell out. I picked up the small box, staring at the cover, and it seemed to be calling me. I couldn’t take the worry anymore, I needed to know. Taking a deep breath and hiding the box under my shirt I snuck down the hall to the bathrooms, my mind only on the small box, and what it would mean for me, depending on what it told me.

The next morning, I hadn’t slept at all, the stick in the box calling to me. I had used it, tested it out, but hadn’t had the guts to look at the result. I just couldn’t bring myself to look at it, not here. It’d look at it once I was back home, safe, in my own personal room, with my door locked and no one around to see the result with me.

I tried not to think about what the result on the stick would say, and thankfully my mind was taken away from it all when I met up with the woman I had rescued from Tony. Her name was Alisha, and she was nice woman, though scrappy and I had figured that out from her trying to claw my eyes out the night before. She looked better; she was clean, all the dirt and filth washed from her body and she smelt better too, like shampoo and scented soap. She still wasn’t talking much, aside from answering the doc’s short questions, and smiling at Jared, their hands never leaving one another’s. the doc said she was safe to travel, and her infections had been shallow and easily taken care of, but she needed to keep herself clean for the next 10 days to be sure.

I thanked the doc for his help and I could feel the Alexandrian couple looking in at us. I hadn’t met them; they hadn’t met me, only Negan and his more brutal counterparts, and they seemed surprised that I cared.  
I didn’t say anything to them, though I leaned over to see the sonogram the doc did on Maggie’s stomach and felt my own stomach flipping and tightening into knots at the sight of it. I loved the idea of having a baby, someday, but…

I pulled my mind from that route. If I started thinking that way, I wouldn’t be able to stop and it would destroy me in hours. Alisha was done with her visit with the doc and I offered her to come back with us and Jared to the sanctuary, and she didn’t hesitate. I wondered if she was making a rash decision based only on the relief Jared and I had given her, but she seemed sure, and the next moment she pressed her lips to Jared’s and he blushed beet red. I burst out laughing at his blush, holding onto a counter as he sputtered and looked embarrassed and pleased all at the same time. A few of the other runners were up as well and laughed at him too, then one of them clapped him obviously on the back with a rousing congratulations.

I smiled at them both, calming myself down from the laughter, and I looked at the community outside the windows. With the sun up, everyone was going about their day and I could see them looking at me and the other runners with disdain and even hatred. I didn’t blame them; I couldn’t.

With the sun up and Alisha looking better, she promised she as ready to travel, so we left the sanctuary, and I clapped Jesus on the shoulder in a farewell, and he did the same for me. No one could socialize with other members like I could, it was part of my job under Negan. He couldn’t do it, it would ruin his appearance with his men, but I could, and I did.

The runners and I slipped and slid all the way down the hill; the snow had melted some and the ground underneath was a sloppy, muddy, slippery mess. I hated this kind of thing, where the weather wouldn’t make up its mind if it would freeze, or it would thaw. This constant back and forth made travel worse, made roads slick and brittle, made dirt and gravel mucky and slippery, and made tracking for food or enemies almost impossible. 

Thankfully, we made it to the van with only a few slips and many loud curses, including from me when I landed in a muddy snowy hole and was soaked from the waist down. The runners were chuckling to themselves when I got out of the mud and cursed loudly, trying to wipe the mud from my shirt and pants, but only made it worse. I just scowled and got into the driver’s seat and we took off, heading for home.  
It was a long drive, and we were anxious. It seemed too quiet, with no activity from the infinity for almost a week and it was waring on us; we were just wait for the other shoe to drop. But when the first guard for the sanctuary came into view, we realized it wouldn’t drop, not today. I knew the battle was coming, but it wasn’t coming today.

About an hour later we were standing in front of Negan, most of us covered in mud and trying to explain to him how we lost 2 vehicles and ended up with this crappy one, and where Alisha had come from. I told him, with a meaningful look, that I wanted to talk to him about that privately. He knew enough about my body language to know what I was referring to, and I saw his hand tighten on Lucille. The other runners were excused, and Jared walked with Alisha, her body pressed tight against his, and he gave her the grand tour.

I followed Negan up the steps, the small, used box in my deep pockets while my pack was taken from me and the supplies added to the cache near the canteen. I heard thanks from women as they saw the fresh tampons and pads now on the shelves, the lotions and creams, and even the condoms and KY lube. Negan would give me shit for that later.

We sat in Negan’s office, both taking drinks from our glasses though I took a sip and refused to drink anymore, and we talked for most of the day and I could see he was angry with me for losing the supplies and the 2 vehicles, but his anger was overshadowed when I told him how I found Alisha. Be broke the glass he was holding and I thought he might start using Lucile to break the furniture in his office. I put a hand on his shoulder, still angry with him over that one night, but he needed to be calm. I told him what I did to Tony and that it was now taken care of, and how Alisha and Jared seemed to like one another. Negan’s anger fell a little as he thought about Jared finally finding someone.

“Think it’s a fucking phase, or you think she’s in it with him?” Negan finally asked and I thought about it for a moment, then shook my head. “I honestly have no idea, but I get the impression they meld together well. Even if she completely recovers, she’ll still see me and Jared as her rescuers, and deliverers of justice. Personally, I think those 2 make a cute couple. And it seems like he’s helping her recover. And Jared looks happier than I’ve seen him since I met him, so that’s something, a big something.” I pushed my glass back to Negan and he took the booze in it and drank it all. I wanted to get to my room, to get away from Negan and look at that stick. But a part of me, a large part of me, really didn’t want to know what that stick would tell me.

I ran to Negan’s private bathroom and vomited into his toilet. I hung over it for several long minutes, trying to get myself to calm down, to keep the small amount of food I had managed to get down to stay down. No such luck.

Negan came in after several minutes and looked at me, and I shook my head as I came back up, wiping my mouth and rinsing it out with water, not looking at him. “the fuck?” he asked of me and I shrugged. 

“Nerves. Been sick little over a week, not that big a deal. It’ll stop now I’m back,” I said and pushed past Negan to head to my room, shower and get some sleep.

Once in my room, I locked the door and slid the box from under my shirt, under my mattress. I needed to take a shower first, then I would look at it. Honestly, I was stalling for when I would need to face the truth, to face something that monumental, that life changing. I pulled out the other box, one that I had kept on me, just in case. If the first one gave me a reading I didn’t want, I would get another. I just needed to be sure.

My shower was long and wonderful, and I could feel the week of work and running falling off my body and my shoulders relaxed, until I got out and realized what was waiting for me back at my room. But there was nothing to stop me from looking at it now, no more stalling.

It was like an out of body experience as I walked back to my room, slid in through the door and locked it behind me. I dressed in lounging clothes, not wanting to leave the room at all today, pulled out the box from under the mattress, slid the long white stick out from the ripped open box and looked down at it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, cliffhanger! I am evil, Mwahaha.  
> (Don't worry, the next chapter will be up soon).  
> Luv4uall!


	6. Reveal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aura sees the results of the test, and soon after so does Negan. And neither of them take it very well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of angst in this chapter, and some domestic violence, so a trigger warning for that. But Aura holds her own.

Negan walked the halls, making his normal rounds, Lucille proudly on his shoulder. He saw Jared and the new woman in the canteen, talking and eating, and he couldn’t pretend it didn’t make him a little happy to see Jared enjoying himself. The woman looked better too, though the bruises were still evident all over her face and body. She wouldn’t look at anyone in the eyes except Aura and Jared, and she trembled when another guy over the age of 10 got near her. But she cracked a faint smile when she talked with Jared and Negan felt better to see her not crawling in on herself.

He walked the halls for a few hours, and noticed that Aura hadn’t been to the medical bay to check on things. She’d been gone for over a week, it would’ve been the first thing she did once things got settled. She practically lived there, and she would too if Negan didn’t make her have a room on the floor with his Saviors. He remembered her vomiting into his fucking toilet a few hours before, and how she dismissed it as nerves, but she said it’d been going on for fucking over a week, since she left for the other communities. That was a long time to be puking her fucking guts out. He decided he should see her.

He stood in front of her room, and knocked a few times, but didn’t get a response. He hadn’t seen her leave, but then again, she was stealthy as fuck and she could sneak up on him all the time. Bugged the fuck out of him. He eventually turned the knob and found it unlocked.

She wasn’t inside, but he found some lounge clothes on the ground and her drawers turned inside out like she had pulled all her fucking clothes out and changed in a fucking hurry. Her smaller bag rested near her bed, so did her bow, arrows and other weapons, except the knife and handgun she had on her person at all times. Negan took a step towards the door, but something cracked under his foot. He looked down to see small pieces of white plastic under his foot, and a box that looked like Aura had started to rip it then gave up. Negan picked up the box, resting Lucille on Aura’s bed and turned the box over in his hands.

His hands gripped the cardboard hard. A fucking pregnancy test box, and it was empty. His mind connected with the small white pieces under his foot and he looked at them, bent over far to see what he could see. He saw another box, thrown under the bed, far into the corner and he pulled that one out. Another pregnancy box, also empty, the instructions still inside but the stick was gone.

Negan toed the plastic on the ground, looking for something to tell him what the result had been, and he saw another broken test on the ground, the remains haphazardly kicked to be under the dresser, but not done very well. The white plastic was cracked, and it was filthy from the bottom of Aura’s shoe, but the result was there.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

My hands shook as I walked around the compound, trying to get my head clear. It didn’t work, and I vomited into some tall grass, some people tending the animals looking over at me, concerned. I waved them off, then one of them offered me some water. I thanked her and took a sip, and she rubbed my back as I vomited again. I could see the concern on her face, the worry. I could see they all looked worried. It wasn’t every day the doctor and one of the highest ranking Saviors was vomiting in front of them; they couldn’t count the number of times I had helped them, saved them, and now they were trying to return the favor.

I sniffled, my eyes streaming, trying to calm myself, needed to get away from everyone, to sit alone and think about my options. I looked at them and said loud enough for them all to hear. “If Negan asks, you didn’t see me. I really don’t wanna talk to him right now.” Everyone looked confused, and a little scared, but they nodded all the same. Most of them respected me more than they feared Negan: the popular vote.

I walked away from the animals and people working, then settled on a part of the fence far away from the Sanctuary, hidden enough that you needed to almost walk on top of me to know I was there. Negan hated that spot, it was a liability with the tall grass, but it linked into a channel where fresh water drained from rains and snowmelts. I closed my eyes, but opened them again when the result of the test glared at me under my eyelids, bright, blue and terrifying.

A big, blue, plus sign.

2 of them 

Positive.

I was pregnant.

With Negan’s baby.

Fuck.

The whole concept, the idea of it all, each one was terrifying on its own, but the entire thing had me shaking, crying and vomiting all over again in no time. Being pregnant in this world was dangerous, much more so than before the turn. Anything could go wrong, even with the doc at the Hilltop; the baby could die while still in-uteruo and rip me apart from the inside when it turned. I might need a C-section and I doubted I would live through that, leaving the baby to try and survive without a mother. With Negan as a father. I vomited again, trying to take deep breaths, but failing as the world started to spin.

And what about Daryl? I buried my face in my hands and cried harder when I thought about him, what he would do, think, when he found out. I wanted to hope and pray and believe it was Daryl’s but the timing was wrong. I’d been vomiting for days before I got back with Daryl. The only result: the baby was Negan’s. 

FUCK!

I screamed that out loud and pounded my hands in the ground, unable to believe this. I slept with Negan once, a time I barely remembered, which I hated myself for even though Daryl had already forgiven me. Was this cosmic punishment for drinking too much and falling into bed with the one person Daryl hated more than anything in this world? The same man that had beat his friends to death, terrorized him and his people? What kind of fucking bullshit was that? I made mistakes, I wouldn’t lie, but I tried my best to be as good a person as I could be in this world. I worked hard to save people, not only with medicine and medical procedures, but giving them my points when they needed them, taking in people, giving them a chance, and trying to save as many lives as I could, and had stopped Negan from killing as many people as he wanted. I had to of saved 20+ people from Negan and Lucille’s wrath in the year I’d known him.

So how did I end up like this? Vomiting again into the grass, seeing spots as I tried to catch my breath, I heard someone talking and I heard the shouting voice of Negan, an almost panicked voice, and I felt a horrid shock shoot up my spine and body. He knew.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Anger and panic flooded Negan’s body as he looked down at the pregnancy test. It was a very strong positive, the blue plus sign bright and well filled in. He bet the other test, the one smashed to pieces on the floor, had the same sign on it, and Aura had stomped on it in fear and refusal to see the truth. Negan wasn’t stupid, he knew how Aura felt about him. But if she was pregnant, and she reacted like that, then he knew he had to be the father. If someone else, whoever the fuck she was seeing outside the walls, was the father she wouldn’t have smashed the fucking test or tried to hide the evidence, and she wouldn’t have taken off.

Negan felt a spasm of fear as he looked at her bag. She hadn’t taken anything with her, but in her panic and fear, she might have left the compound to clear her head, find some pills, but she left all her gear here. As resourceful and skilled as she was, she wouldn’t be in the right fucking mind to fight off some walkers or a fucking attacker. Negan picked up the most readable test and pocketed it, then started walking around the Sanctuary, asking where Aura was. She had been seen walking outside, around the perimeter fence, heading for the animals and gardens, but he couldn’t see her when he looked out at them. He headed out, determined to find her and confront her, but Negan couldn’t stop his own fear in his own fucking chest.

Aura and Negan didn’t see eye to eye; hell, they were at each other’s throats at least once every 2 weeks or so, and more so since she returned from her trip after she lost Ryan and Michelle, when he told her not to come back. He had broken his own word to get her back, and now she was fucking carrying his fucking kid. He saw the gardeners looking at him as he got close and they knelt for him, knees into the cold snow.

“Anyone fucking seen Aura?” he asked them and they all shook their heads, but a few of them looked like they were hiding something. He snarled at one of the younger guys, pimply and scarred from pimples, about 17 or so, gangly and obviously not enjoying the puberty he was going through. “You fucking saw her, it’s all over your fucking face,” Negan said, pointing Lucille at the kid and he looked terrified, but he shook his head all the same. “What the fuck are you hiding?!” Negan shouted at the kid and he wilted under the stare and the rage that Negan was putting off. He raised Lucille over his head, ready to fucking lay the kid into the ground, make teenage fertilizer out of his brains. 

2 hands caught his arms as he pulled his arms all the way back. He looked over to see who it was; Aura was snarling at him, her face pale, and she looked awful, the smell of vomit still lingering on her as she breathed hard to pull his arms back to his sides. Negan looked at her, and his anger, rage and fear all came out at her.

The back of his hand connected with her face, but she barely stumbled. Her nose started to bleed slightly, but she stopped the flow fast with some cloth from her pocket. Her eyes were unfocused, and she swayed on the spot slightly, like she had just a little too much to drink, enough to get her into the giggly moron stage. Negan was aware of the crowd gathering around them, watching the argument between them, but he was too angry to care. Aura had disappeared from his sight when he needed to know where she was the most, and he knew it looked bad, how he had panicked, how not cool it looked. 

Negan snarled down at Aura, then put his hand on her shoulder to steady her as she swayed some more on the spot and her eyes met his, and he saw the fire and spirit in them again, but it didn’t translate to her face, or the rest of her body. As he looked her over, she looked like she had lost weight since he last saw her, her skin was pale, her lips cracked and her skin looked dry, lustless and unhealthy. She normally had a faint glow to her skin, so soft to the touch, but now it looked rough and dry. And her hair and nails looked brittle, thin and easily broken.

When she crossed her arms in front of her chest, her hip cocked to the side, Negan was snapped back to where he was and what he was here for. He snarled at her and she snarled back, but there was little behind it, like she had no energy for it. “He was just doing as I asked, Negan. Don’t punish him for what I told him to do, punish me. I can see it on your face, you want to beat the shit out of me right now,” Aura said and Negan snarled at her again. He wanted to kill her for a moment for making the kid undermine him, but it faded as he felt the stick in his pocket.

Almost the entire Sanctuary was looking at them, even the guards watching from their posts to see the interaction between the 2 powerhouses of the Sanctuary. Negan reached into his pocket and pulled out the test, the bright blue plus sign obvious to anyone that was close enough to see it. A faint whisper ran around the crowd, but Negan ignored it, focusing on the woman in front of him. As he leered down at her, she looked out of it again for a moment, and seemed to get paler.

“Fucking explain this shit!” he said and shoved the test into her chest so hard she stumbled half a step back and it fell to the ground. That fire was back in her eyes, and now it was on her face and in her body language too.

“What the fuck do you want me to say?!” aura shouted at the top of her lungs, and she was ashamed to feel tears stinging at the back of her eyes, and bile threatening to come up her throat. “I’m fucking pregnant, and you’re the fucking father! What more do you want? Gonna call up Maury and get a paternity test? You think I fucking want…” Aura stopped mid-sentence and bent over, hands on her knees as she vomited into the snow and she pushed Negan away when he tried to touch her. “Fuck you, Negan. You think I want a kid right now? I’d carry it around for 9 months, risking dozens of possible complications, most of which would kill me and might kill the baby. And even if we both live, what about post-partum issues? Malnutrition, sudden infant death syndrome, attack, herds, you think I want to have a baby in a world like that, the one we’re in right now?” Aura stopped her rant, her body swaying harder than before as Negan felt eyes upon eyes on them all. 

He grabbed her arm hard and wanted to drag her inside, rail into her for her stupidity, and take out his own fear and anger out on her; but she twisted his arm so hard he thought he heard it crack at the elbow and shoulder, felt a little pain in his arm where her hand had a death grip on it. he snarled at her, and slapped her again across the face, a bruise already rising across her eye and cheek; she barely blinked when he did, and this time she hit back. Her palm lay into his face and Negan clutched his nose as it spouted blood. He was furious with her now; he might kill her, the way he was feeling. Negan closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, remembering the test that now lay on the ground, the blue plus sign calling to him. He needed to be careful with her, she was pregnant with his kid. He would take her to his room, lock her in if he needed, and talk to her about it, like fucking adults. 

But Aura was gone when he opened his eyes and looked around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I picture Negan not taking the news very well, mostly because he hates not being in the loop and he assumes that Aura had no real intention of telling him. And he lashes out, because he's afraid to admit it terrifies him.  
> This is getting good, and the excitement will keep coming.  
> Luv4uall!


	7. All His

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aura leaves the sanctuary for some alone time, but ends up sick and Negan brings her back. After he does, he realizes that he now has her, completely, thanks to the tiny human growing inside her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Negan's revelation will be key for the next few chapters.

Negan spun around, looking for where Aura had gone, and he was on the verge of shouting for her when one of the people pointed back to the Sanctuary and he took off, picking up the pregnancy test as he did. He felt like a complete asshole now as he looked for her, asking once again, for the 2nd time that day, who had seen Aura and where she went. He had hit her, twice, for something that had to scare her more than it scared him. He felt weak, pathetic, now that he thought about it and figured he should apologize to her when he caught up with her.

Negan ran through the compound, but found some people that said she left through the main doors, while others said she’d gone upstairs to her room. He ran up the steps, taking them 3 at a time, and when he came to the top floor, he threw the door open and found her room door ajar. He ran to it, determined to grab her before she could do anything, but she wasn’t inside. And neither was her small go bag.

Fuckity fuck, she must have left the Sanctuary.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I ran through the woods, not wanting to talk to anyone or anything right now; I could hear the sounds of someone near me in the trees, and I knew I was close to one of the guard posts. I couldn’t be too far from the Sanctuary, not in the condition I was in. it had nothing to do with me being pregnant and everything to do with how I was seeing double, spots and bright lights, and how I was having trouble putting my feet onto the ground without tripping over them. My head pounded and I vomited again.

A few minutes later, I was at the guard post high in the trees and told the guard that I was here to relieve him. He looked at me, since he had just started his turn, but I didn’t want to be in those walls right now, and I needed to be away from everyone, to think, to plan, and to cry. The guard just nodded and climbed down from the post and I heard him walking away, heading to talk to another guard, one of his friends, and I was glad when his voice no longer carried on the wind. I had no intention of being inside the Sanctuary right now; I wanted to spend the night out here, in the cool, quiet winter air and let it all cool my body down. I felt hot, feverish almost, but I wasn’t running a fever.

I sipped on some water and looked up at the sky, the sun slowly setting and I was glad for the clear, cold night. I could count the stars, and I could even see the Milky Way as it slowly arced across the sky above me as the hours ticked away. I was feeling better now that I was back in a familiar place, but then I would think about the test, that damned blue plus sign staring up at me and I would cry all over again. ‘Why me’ was all I could think when I remembered seeing the result for the first time, then stomping onto the plastic test when the plus sign had glared at me. I didn’t want to think about it even now, hours later, but I could only see that sign when I closed my eyes and even when I blinked.

I ran water over my face and it felt good when it slowly dried onto my skin, which felt too hot to be normal. Everything was spinning and I leaned back against the tree and took in several deep breaths. I knew this was the nausea that my own mother had suffered, she had told me about it when we were having the baby talk. My aunt had been sick a lot too, and my uncle had worried about it constantly, taking her to every doctor they could afford and getting expensive intravenous meds and fluids into her that way.

I knew the start of starvation and dehydration, I had been suffering it on and off for over a week, almost 2 now; my inability to keep anything down was hard on me, and with another being in my body, needing my nutrients and health, we were both suffering. I took tiny bites of a bar I had in my bag and was relieved when I didn’t feel the need to vomit it up right away. I sat in silence for several hours more, when the sun was long gone and the moon was bright, full, and cool overhead; I was happy when I finished the bar and it stayed down, and I finished the water in the bottle and that was done too. When the next guard came out I told him to relieve someone else, I needed to be out here and think. The guard shrugged, then turned back and looked at me, knowingly, then joined me on the post, both our legs hanging over the sides of the little stand in the tree. I felt like I was in a deer stand, hunting with my dad and uncle when I was finally old enough to go hunting with him, shortly after my 12th birthday. I thought of those times fondly, when my dad and uncle spent time with me and only me, because it was rare. 

My dad had a fondness for my brother, more than for me, and I knew it, everyone knew it, and he never denied it, but my brother refused to go hunting when my dad wanted to go. But I loved it. Turkeys, deer, bear, wolves, pheasant, it was all we had together and I remembered those times fondly. We went fishing together too: I once caught a sturgeon on Lake Winnebago in Wisconsin, and I thought it was the ugliest fish I had ever seen. He had laughed hard and long when I speared the massive fish on my first time out with him, but he’d been fishing for over 2 decades on the same lake and never got one. But my first time with him, not long after I turned 14, I got a big one, a record for the county. And he was so proud too, showing it off, and showing me off, for weeks afterwards, showing anyone that paused long enough pictures of the massive, long, snake-like fish. Man, I still thought they were ugly. But oh, so tasty.

I was shaken from my thoughts and memories when the guard got a message over the walkie, the crackle loud and annoying as everything that had happened to me in the last few weeks came back, crashing down on me hard. The guard listened, the words faint, and I could hear Dwight on the other end, letting him know that Negan was heading out. The guard spoke into the mouthpiece, asking when Negan was going to be back, to pass it along and Dwight was quiet for a moment, then said loud enough for me to hear, “He doesn’t know. Aura disappeared and he needs to find her.” 

I shook my head at the guard and he understood that I didn’t want to be disturbed. “She’s probably hunting, sir. She’s a smart girl, she’ll be fine,” the guard said and I raised an eyebrow at him at the obvious attempt at flattery. “I hope not. She’s pregnant and looking like fucking shit warmed over. Don’t think she’d make it an hour in her condition. Fucking going off on her own like that, she should know better.”

The guard looked at me and I could tell from his face he hadn’t known. He looked at me, mouth wide open, not bothering to close it as he stared, his eyes wide. I nodded slowly and sadly and pulled my legs up onto the stand and curled up closer to myself, letting the bark of the tree grind into my back. It felt good, like someone scratching my back, and I pulled my hair down from my tight ponytail and the headache I had lessened a little bit and I enjoyed the freeing feeling. I ran fingers through my growing hair, noticing how brittle it felt and how split the ends were. The black dye I had used months ago had faded to a kind of bluish gray, but my sandy blonde roots were showing a few inches down from my head.

“If you see her, radio it in. She needs to be here. She can’t be out hunting while carrying a kid; God, the next 9 months are going to be hell from her. She’s insufferable normally, but once those hormones kick in, she’s gonna be a fucking hellish bitch,” Dwight said, and I snarled and I grabbed the walkie from the guard before he could say anything or stop me. I pressed the talk button down, and said darkly and angrily, “Well fuck you Dwight!”

There was a long silence on the other end of the walkie and I knew that Dwight was now too afraid to say anything and I also knew that Negan would know in heartbeat that I was still around. In the distance, I heard squealing tires, and I knew that Negan had stopped his vehicle on his way out; he couldn’t be more than a mile away. I looked to the guard and told him to head to another tower. He’d be in trouble for not telling anyone where I was. He climbed down the tree and headed farther away from the road to another post. 

Negan‘s voice crackled over the walkie. “Where in the fuckity fuck are you?” his voice was thick with anger and I had a feeling this would end up with another bruise on my face when I met up with him again. hHe’d tortured me in the past before, it wasn’t something I hadn’t known from him, and it kind of gave me a chance to let something else into my head other than the shitty situation I was in. 

“Guard tower 11” I said simply and I heard the vehicle getting closer to my post and eventually it stopped about a hundred yards away and I heard Negan stomping through the forest, and the sound as he took out a walker. I knew he was beyond angry right now, but at the moment, I was too numb to care. Too numb, to cold, too hot. I felt so wrong as I folded over on myself and clutched my suddenly racing heart. I wasn’t afraid of Negan, what was causing this? I thought in my head and figured it had to be stress; lack of nutrition could cause racing heart and palpitations. I hadn’t eaten or drank enough for almost 2 weeks, just barely enough to keep myself alive and it was now catching up to me. I took several long breaths, trying to keep myself calm as I heard Negan calling my name, demanding me to answer. 

I leaned forward, ready to face, him. Then I saw nothing.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Negan stomped through the woods, ready to tear Aura a new asshole, to lay into her for making him worry like that. He looked so not cool right now, looking for her, acting like a fool chasing her through the woods. He’d gathered some men together to look for her and she was barely a mile away from the compound the entire time. As he neared the stand in the trees, he saw Aura and she looked bad. Her hand was on her heart, but she looked strong, stoic and she would take whatever Negan had in mind for her. She leaned forward to talk to him when he called out for her.

But she was leaning too far, and her arms suddenly went limp, her head lolling forward towards her heaving chest, and her body was falling forward in a slow, graceful arc. Negan ran forward dropping Lucile as he stepped over to the stand, just in time to see Aura fall from the stand, 10 feet in the air, unconscious. Her face was pale, covered in cold sweat, her heart was hammering in her chest, which was rising and falling fast. She didn’t respond when he shook her, lifted her eyelid, but he found her eyes were rolled back in her head. She was out cold.

Negan threw her over his shoulder, picked up Lucille with a free hand in a long, graceful step and was almost running back to the vehicle. They weren’t far from the Sanctuary, but he needed to get her back as soon as fucking possible. But what would they do? Aura was the fucking doctor at the Sanctuary. He would either need to take her to the hilltop, or hope the new people in the medical bay knew what the fuck they were doing.

Aura moaned and stirred in his arms as he made it to the truck and the other men were looking at Aura, and Negan saw concern on their faces. Aura was well liked and a very good person, regardless of how often she and Negan fought. Negan didn’t think he could handle losing her again; he wouldn’t recover if she slipped away, taking the baby with her.

He gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white and the wheel strained under his powerful grip. Negan felt the need to tie her to the bed and never let her out of his sight again, but there was no way in hell she would stand for that. She’d get out, not matter what he tried. She’d escaped from her cell when he was torturing her for information. His gut turned when he thought about it. He hadn’t liked the idea of torturing her, but her lack of cooperation had made him sure that she was hiding someone, or something. And she had played him for a chump when he learned she hadn’t been hiding anything, she was just hardened as fuck and unwilling to give in. but she’d escaped from that cell several times while she was being interrogated, and had shown her skills when someone tried to apprehend her. The guards ended up in the medical bay, broken fingers, toes, ribs and dislocated shoulders and elbows. And she had barely been trying.

Aura stirred again in the back, some of the men making sure she didn’t move around too much, and her eyes slowly opened. She looked confused, dazed, and she couldn’t sit up on her own. She leaned over the side and vomited again, but this time she wasn’t stopping, not until her lips were blue with lack of air. Negan felt fear rise in his chest and sped up, and the gates to the Sanctuary opened too slow for his taste and he had an urge to beat the shit out of the guards for it; but right now, Aura was the one that mattered the most. He picked her up from the back and felt that she was lighter than last time he had picked her up; and it worried him.

In the medical bay, Aura was still out of it, but was slowly coming around as the new intern slid a needle into her arm to get fluids in her. Aura lay back on the bed and she looked exhausted, sick and on the verge of death. Her hand unconsciously slipped to her stomach and Negan felt the fear, anxiety and some excitement as it did. It was his baby, his tiny little being growing inside her, Aura, who had to be the strongest woman living on this planet. He tried to hide his mild erection as he thought about it, thought about her, how tough she was, about her spirit and the fire deep within her. He had to excuse himself from the medical bay as the intern looked Aura over and just said it was dehydration and starvation setting in. Some fluids and pills would take care of it. If she got better in a few days after this kind of treatment, then she should be out of the woods.

Back on the top floor, one of his wives came out to meet him, and he walked with her into her room, and pounded into her, thinking about Aura again, her strength, and how she was now carrying his kid. The fear was slowly ebbing away with the prideful revelation: he finally had her, at his whim. And there was nothing she could really do about it. He came loudly as he thought about that, the idea of Aura being at his mercy, finally, after over a year of constantly trying. And all it had taken was one drunken night.

Negan went to his office, a dark and accomplished look on his face, and he sat at his desk, pouring himself a glass of scotch and toasted himself, glad he finally had it all. He had the Sanctuary, all the other communities at his whim, and he knew he could take on the Infinity, wherever the fuck they were. And now he had Aura, the only thing he had never been able to get, the one thing he wanted more than anything since the turn. He smiled to himself as he thought about it, and he could feel his erection pushing against his jeans again. This one, he’d save for Aura. Whether she wanted it, or not. 

Because now, she was all his, and there wasn’t a fucking thing she could do about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, the fight with the Infinity will be coming soon, but I think this darkness brewing inside Negan needs to be played out a little bit first. Luv4uall!


	8. Recovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aura recovers from constant the morning sickness and stress, and worries Negan might be planning something for her, something she won't like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. I had some serious writer's block.

Everything was fuzzy, like looking through a steamy window, ad all I could see was lights and the occasional shadow. I tried to open my mouth to get some attention, but I couldn’t move it, and I felt sore and exhausted all over.

I blinked several times as the last thing I remember came into my mind, being in the lookout post in the tree, and I recognized things as my mind cleared. I was in the medical bay, and I could hear the faint sounds of beeping, and several wires attached to my arms and chest. I heard Pam talking in the distance, and I tried to raise my head to look at her, but I couldn’t move still. I coughed loud and swallowed hard, trying to get some moisture in my dry mouth and I heard a shout, and soon Pam was at my side, helping me drink some water.

I looked at her, as my mind cleared fully and I sat up slowly, though she advised me not to. It was late, probably long after curfew, and I could hear some faint snoring over the beeping of the machine. The medical bay looked to be past capacity, people sitting in chairs, standing with their heads on their chest, and others sitting on beds, all facing towards where I was laying. It hit me that they were waiting for me to wake up, to be ok, and they wanted to know for themselves. They were worried about me.

I hid the stinging in the back of my eyes again as I felt the emotions of feeling so loved, and blinked to prevent the tears from falling down. Pam smiled at me; I could tell she was nervous about treating me, who was her boss for all intents and purposes, but she was so eager to prove herself. I looked myself over and saw that the glow in my skin had returned a little bit, though my hair and nails were still rather brittle. I looked over at Pam and motioned for my chart and looked it over. It said what I thought was the most likely cause of the racing heart, pale skin, unhealthy appearance in general: lack of nutrition and stress. Finding out I was pregnant was the final straw, and my body couldn’t take anymore.

I looked over at Pam and I could tell she was nervous about talking to me, but after several more cups of water and a cloth to wipe my face on, I looked over at her. “how long was I out?” I asked her and she sighed. 

“3 days. Your body just gave out,” she said and I looked at her, not sure if that was right, but she had no reason to lie to me. And given how long my body was slowly breaking down, and the fight with Negan, I guess it was best that I had been out.

I suddenly remembered the fight and touched the bruises on my face and felt they were feeling well, and I saw my reflection in a far window: though dirty, smelly and haggard looking, the bruises were down a lot and already turning yellow. 

I heard someone talking in the distance and I knew that someone was about to tell Negan that I was awake, but I didn’t want to talk to him. The son of a bitch hit me several times, and he knew that I was…

Fuck, was all I could think as it all came back to me. I pulled my knees to my chest and thought hard, trying to find the timeline for when I had conceived. I thought back to the first time with Daryl, and I was trying so hard in my mind to line that up with my cycles and when I started to become sick, but it was too long ago. The more recent time with Daryl was too late, I was already vomiting and showing symptoms by then. 

The only time that made sense, as much as I hated it, was that I had become pregnant from Negan.

Fuck.

I could hear the swagger of the man himself and he soon after entered the medical bay and I snarled at him as he got too close. I was still beyond pissed at him, but that large plaster smile never fell from his face as he tried to apologize to me for how he acted. I ignored him.

I could feel the anger he was started to radiate as I continued to ignored him. I turned to everyone still in the room and asked them to give me and Negan a moment alone. They all slowly left the room, until it was only Pam left and she closed the door behind her, a wary look on her face. I knew they were afraid Negan might attack me again, maybe kill me or the baby. I gave them a reassuring nod and the door clicked shut behind them.

I turned to Negan, a dark look on his face and his smile faltered for a moment, then he ran a gloved hand over my bruised eye and I pulled back. Aside from not wanting him to touch me, it was still very sensitive. His hand faltered and I knew he was feeling some kind of regret for losing his cool, especially in front of his men and the people. He didn’t really care about how he had hurt me; it was all about what he looked like. And when he hit me, he looked like a scared, pathetic shell of a man, not the cool, confident leader and commander.

I crossed my arms and looked away from him again and I could feel his patience waning, but I didn’t care. Let him try and hit me again. It would give me a reason to kill, him. Now, I was protecting my baby, and if he attacked me and I killed him while ‘defending’ myself, no one would think twice about it.

Negan sat down in a chair and pulled himself closer to me and I looked at him harder again and I felt his anger subsiding slightly as his eyes drifted down to my stomach. It was too early for me to be showing, but the test that he pulled out from his pocket reminded me of what I had inside me. My breath caught in my chest as I remembered, though I had never really forgotten, I just didn’t want to think about it.

I flung my head back onto the pillows and covered my face in my hands, trying to think. I couldn’t have a baby right now, certainly not with Negan. But I didn’t have it in my heart to get rid of it; I’d always wanted to be a mom, just not like this.

Leather rubbed my cheek again and I jolted up, still twitchy, and I realized I had been crying. I wiped my eyes, angry with myself for showing any kind of weakness in front of Negan, and cleared my throat and looked at him. What did he think about the baby, would he want it?

“Well?” I asked him, and Negan’s eyes darted down to my stomach again and his gloved hand slowly traced the scars from the boar, and some left over from his own hand and torture, to rest his entire palm on my belly. I felt nervous all of a sudden, as he looked at me with a completely blank face, and I felt ready to attack him if he snapped and tried to kill the baby.

He leaned forward slowly and pressed his full lips and scratchy beard to my stomach.

I pulled back a bit, but he held my body in place as he kissed my stomach from top to bottom, side to side, then when he was satisfied, he learned forward and placed a kiss on my forehead. I pulled back from that one too, wiping his spit from my forehead and he chuckled at me.

“Get used to it, babygirl, ‘cause I’m the daddy, and I got a fucking say in this,” he said and I snarled at him. He looked at me as I snarled at him and he smiled wider, that awful plastered grin back on his face and he wiped the tears from my face again, and I pulled back again, still beyond pissed. His smile never faltered, and I could see in his eyes this dark sense of accomplishment, and I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. He was planning something and there was no way in hell I was going to like it.

“Well, if I’m gonna be a fucking dad, I better get some fucking dad shit. I’m taking Dwight and some new motherfuckers; you’re gonna stay the fuck in that bed until I get back. And don’t think I won’t punish you if I find out you fucking left,” he said the last sentence in a harsh whisper and I had another sinking feeling in my stomach. Negan had tortured me before, but I wasn’t pregnant at the time, and we hadn’t been on the verge of war either.

He got up and sauntered over to the door, the same dark happiness on his face and I didn’t like it at all. Everything ounce of gut and instinct was telling me that he was planning something for me and it would not be good. I didn’t show the nerves on my face as he left the medical bay and Pam came back in ad said that Negan had told her that I shouldn’t leave the bay until he got back. She looked sad when she said it, and she knew that she was on my side, not Negan’s but she would be killed for disobeying his orders. This place was fucked up, and I didn’t want it to stay that way for long.

Negan was gone for 3 days, and by the time he got back I was climbing the walls and wanted to get out and away from everyone and everything. I had time to come to terms with the baby I had inside me and some faint glimmers of excitement fluttered in me when I thought about it, or when mothers would come in and talk to me about it. A baby was big news, there weren’t many in the world anymore, and Judith was the youngest one I had seen since joining the saviors. There was talk of finding a special room for me to rest in on the first floor for when I gave birth and the first few months, when I should be taking it easy, but I wanted to stay in my room. It was big enough, though it lacked the needed supplies for a baby.

A baby. My baby. I would rub my stomach when I heard those words, or every time I thought about it and would stare at my stomach. I honestly had never thought, given how the world was, that I would ever have a baby. And it was terrifying and wonderful all at the same time. 

Negan came back from a trip, some kind of store, and he had this smug look on his face, and I felt a spasm of fear. Had he bragged about it, told everyone about me and the baby? Had Daryl found out? I sat on the bed again, feeling my heart racing and Pam came over and helped me sip some water to get me calm and lower my heart rate. I had been too shocked about what I meant for me, and trying to keep it from Negan, that I hadn’t thought what Daryl would think if he found out. When he found out. I couldn’t keep this big a secret for long. And though Daryl was a good man, and I had no doubts he would like the kid as his own if given the chance, I just couldn’t handle the idea of what his would think, how he would react, what his face would look like, when he found out, and it didn’t come from me.

I pounded my fists into the bed again and Pam took some time away from me to let me get it out. I could hear Negan bragging through an open window about this motherlode they had found, a huge warehouse with a lot of shit that was hidden in some woods, on a long forgotten, overgrown truck route. About an hour later, someone came up with a box of medical supplies and I got out of bed, dressed and headed over to help. There was no way in hell I was gonna sit there with something to do staring me in the face.

I took the time to teach Pam and some of the other orderlies and helpers about the various things Negan and his group had found; dosage, side effects, what to mix it with to make it last long and stretch farther, and then we sorted it all and put it away in the cupboards. Pam hadn’t moved things around at all while I was gone and I was grateful she didn’t, because I had put everything where I liked it and knew where everything was.

We were almost done with the sorting when I heard the stomping of Negan’s shoes and Pam looked at me, unsure if I should run to be in bed, but I shook my head and she let out a faint smirk, then ducked her head down. Negan stood in the doorway, and I could feel him staring at me, and I knew he wasn’t happy about me being out of bed, but I hadn’t left the medical bay, so he couldn’t complain.

“Sounds like you were successful,” I said over my shoulder as I put the last of the meds away and told everyone else to go home for the night. I would take the night shift. I could tell Negan was about to argue, but I shot him a look and he wouldn’t want to have this conversation in front of others. Pam was the last to leave and she bowed her head for Negan before looking back at me one last time and I waved happily at her before the door closed behind her.

“The fuck you’re gonna stay here all night,” Negan finally said when the last of the listeners had left the area and we had no chance of being overheard. I looked back at him, my eyes intense and I knew he loved the fire I had in them. “I’ve been stuck in that fucking bed on and off since you left. I’ve slept and ate enough, I feel a shitload better. I’m going back to work,” I said with a final tone and I felt a hard leather grip on my arm and Negan spun me around to look at him. I yanked my arm out his grasp ad snarled at him as he leaned down to sneer into my face, but I leaned back against the cupboards, my face calm and sure. And it pissed him off.

“I’m still the doc here, Negan. I’m still a Savior, I’m still the person the people come to when they have a problem, not you, not Dwight, not S…” I paused as I thought about my dead friend and I could see the shadow cross over Negan’s face. Simon’s death had hit Negan hard, though he went to great lengths to hide it. “and we still have the Infinity to worry about. I can’t afford to be on my back for 9 straight months. And neither can you,” I said and realized I had walked into another one. “I’d fucking love to see you on your back,” Negan replied and I sighed. Yep. Walked into that one.

Negan walked away from me and looked harder at me. I could see that calculating, dark look on his face again and I felt a shiver travel up my neck, fear hitting me in the gut. “When you’re done with you shift, see me in my office. We have a lot of fucking shit to talk about.” Negan left the room and I swore I saw a dark smirk play on his face before he straightened up and looked around then strutted away from the medical bay.

I felt dread as I thought about what made me so nervous to see Negan in his office. I’d talked to him in his office before, dozens of times, why would this one be so different. I wanted to tell myself it was the hormones starting to make me more paranoid, but something about the way he looked at me, that hunger and accomplishment in his eyes, that dark smirk on his face; it made me actually scared of Negan. And Negan had never scared me before, not even when he was torturing me. 

The rest of my shift was dead, no pun intended, and I didn’t see another soul for the rest of the night. Everyone was sound asleep when an orderly came into relieve me and said, like always, she would come get me if something big happened. I walked up the steps, still feeling a tad run down, then stepped onto the 6th floor landing, walked down the familiar rug to my own room first. I threw on some clean clothes, slipped a small knife into my boot and another one into my belt, and finally walked to Negan’s office door.

I took a deep breath, trying to calm the odd, sudden nerves I felt deep in my gut, and knocked on the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's mostly filler, but this sets up the next chapter, an important turning point in their relationship. Luv4uall!


	9. A Lesson to be Learned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Negan lets out all the anger and resentment he's felt towards Aura, on her, and it's not pretty. Heavy angst, disturbing imagery, non-con. This is a longer chapter than most of the others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS A VERY INTENSE AND DARK CHAPTER!!!! Non-con, disturbing imagery, mentions of past suicide attempts, and miscarriage imagery.
> 
> YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Be prepared to cringe.

“Come in,” Negan said from the other side of the door and I hesitated before opening the door, my shoulders back and face emotionless. The office was darker than normal, save over a dozen of lit candles on every possible surface, and a soft jazz album played over the recordplayer in a corner by the bookshelf. I walked in and closed the door behind me, raising an eyebrow as I looked at Negan, who was sipping some whiskey and looked rather pleased with himself. I walked in to stand in front of the desk he was sitting at and crossed my arms when he just sipped his drink and didn’t looked at me.

I sat in the chair across from him as he finally looked at me and offered me a glass of water, since i could no longer drink. And I don’t think I would ever want to drink with him again, considering what happened last time. I pressed a hand to my stomach as I thought about it and then looked back at him, crossing my arms as he finished his whiskey and set the glass down, and finally looked at me. I sipped my water and glared at him, still angry with him over many things he’d done over the last few weeks. His smile was still plastered on his lips and I knew he was planning something, and judging from the candles and music, he thought he might get lucky. Like hell he would.

I crossed my arms and snarled at him again as he stood up, and took out the pregnancy test and set it on the table gently ad I looked at it, then looked away from it a second later. “What did you wanna talk about Negan?” I finally say and he stood up, tapping a finger to his lips, fake thinking, and I rolled my eyes at him.

“Our deal,” he said finally and I turned in the chair and looked at him, raising an eyebrow. 

“What about it?” I asked and a dark, sinister smile crossed his face and I felt my stomach drop out from my body. He’d given me that look once before, shortly before he held me down and fucked me in the ass, trying to get me to give in to him; it had been meant to be a threat, and when I hadn’t given in when he threatened me, he had delivered on the threat. I hadn’t changed my facial expression, not once, even when it burned as he entered me. I wouldn’t give him that then, and I certainly wouldn’t give him that now.

I straightened out my face and he could see that I had caught on. “Don’t be like that, babydoll,” he whispered as he got near my ear and I could smell the drunk on him, and he swagger, and almost stumbled as he walked around the desk to stand behind me, his large hands on my shoulders. His nose pressed against my ear and I pulled away from him, glaring at him.

“It was your idea, babydoll. As long as no one fucking knew,” he whispered into my ear and I remembered I had said it. It was meant to placate him, to keep him from attacking people I cared about, but this was out of normal for him. He hated when it wasn’t consensual, he had killed someone less than 2 weeks ago for it; but he was a filthy hypocrite all the time anyway.

His large hands slid from my shoulders down the front of my shirt and played with the fabric of my bra and I snarled at him and he pulled back from me for a moment, then yanked me out of the chair, threw me over his shoulder and carried me, kicking and punching, to his bedroom.

There were more candles in here, and a more sensual music track played in the background. It smelt like vanilla and sugar, some scented candles burning on a bedside table; he set me on the bed, face first, and before I could roll over or get away, he was laying on top of me, his weight pressing me down onto the bed. He raised his chest up, his hips and legs pressing into my lower body even harder and I felt his hard member against my ass through my jeans. I moved my neck and head to look over at him, but he just had a dark smirk on his face.

“Don’t worry, I’ll have you screaming my fucking name in no fucking time,” Negan said in a deep, sultry voice and I felt a thrill of worry for the first time. I doubted he would be rough enough to hurt the baby, but what kinky shit did he have in mind? I could see faint outlines of what looked like ropes or some kind of restraining cables in a dark corner of the wall. 

“Don’t move, or you’ll be punished,” he said into my ear and I felt a short burst fear, and his hand gripped the back of my neck threateningly for a second before he got up off the bed and I looked up where he was going. A second later, something was thrown at me and I caught it. It was a big fluffy pillow. What the fuck?

The next second, his hand grasped my neck and pushed me down against the bed again, and he slid the pillow under my head. “Don’t want you uncomfortable, babydoll,” he said darkly and I snarled at him before he pushed my face into the pillow in anger. I could feel every angry feeling and thought he had towards me, since we had met over a year ago, coming to show on his face and bubbling to the surface. I gulped hard. I didn’t care about what he did to me, but in this angry state, I wouldn’t put it past him to be so rough he hurt the baby. I tried to pull away from him and get to the edge of the bed, to look at him, but he pinned me down harder into the pillow, and cool soft leather wrapped around my neck. It felt like a collar or something, and though I couldn’t see it, Negan touched it enough for me to know it was a collar, but not meant for dogs. 

Meant for BDSM. 

Shit.

The leather collar was attached to some kind of rope or something that I could no longer see as my face was forced into the pillow again, and attached to the headboard. Each arm was tied down to link to something tied to the floor or base of the bed. When he was done, I was face-first, ass in the air and arms pulled out around me, unable to move more than an inch in any direction. My ankles were hooked to one another, but I couldn’t take wide steps or run.

Negan walked away from the bed, a smile on his face and he stood next to me, and knelt down to look at me, like he was proud of himself and I snarled and growled at him. I cursed him out loudly, screaming at him that this was unnecessary, and it was rape, because I had never said yes to this. He slipped a leather gag into my mouth. Son of a bitch. I glared daggers as him as he walked around the room slow, picking things up from where the candles had cast shadows and I hadn’t been able to see.

I blushed and looked away as I could finally see some of them, and didn’t want to think about them. All I has seen was a riding crop and I buried my face in the pillow, not wanting to think about it, and trying to calm myself. We’d done something like this once before, and I hadn’t given into him then. There was no way in hell I would give in now.

I took several steadying breaths as I heard Negan undressing, then he took his sweet time folding his clothes and putting them away. I knew he was stalling, hoping I would overthink and letting the tension and imagination work me up. I took another calming breath and thought about other things. Cute animals, mostly kittens and puppies, bright sunlight on a beach, my toes in the sand as it warmed my feet. Kids playing in the shallow water and their squeals of joy as they splashed one another.

A hard smack on my ass brought me back to the present and I snarled at Negan. “don’t zone out on my now, babydoll. I haven’t even fucking started,” he smirked and he unsheathed a knife and he cut off my clothes. Aside from the embarrassing and frightening events, I was angry now. He was cutting my best clothes.

“I’ll get you new ones,” he berthed against my ear when he saw my angry look. I looked into the pillow and snarled, but tried to calm myself and was determined not to give into him. I wouldn’t yield, I wouldn’t give.

Cold leather hands on my asshole brought me back and I held back the snarl I wanted to give out. We’d been down this road before, and I hadn’t given in last time, and I wouldn’t give in this time. I let the pillow swallow the hiss as his fingers entered me and it burned, but I wouldn’t let it show. The fingers glided in once, twice, then pulled out and I felt his hot head pushing against me. I gritted my teeth, knowing the pain that would come and was able to not make a sound as he entered me.

I knew it was disappointing for him to not hear the noises, but he was the one that gagged me. His pace was brutal, fast and everything was burning within seconds; no lube, almost no prep, and I hadn’t done anal since his torture. I breathed through my nose, the leather strap blocking most of my air, and buried my face in the soft feathers of the pillow. It smelt good, like lavender and vanilla, kind of like the room, but another sharp pain made me forget. My hands twitched, wanting to rip out Negan’s throat for this. My legs twitched slightly as a jolt of pain rocked them and I held back the faint scream.

Negan was done shortly after that and he pulled out, his cum dripping from my ass, but I could feel something else dripping from it too, and when I looked around, between my legs, something darker and red dripped onto the mattress. I held back the anger I felt, not willing to let him know he was getting to me.

“Oops. Guess I got fucking carried away. But you got a fucking great ass,” he said and slapped my ass and my legs twitched in pain again.

“Well, while I’m getting ready for round 2, how about something new?” he said and something hard smacked against my very sore and painful ass. It sounded and felt like the riding crop. He pulled out the gag and made me count out loud, and said that if I missed a number, we would need to start all over again. For about 20 hits, I said nothing, just glaring back at him; but the pain wasn’t fading, if anything it was getting worse and I could see a small pool of blood gathering between my legs as it dripped down from my asshole.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and said in a soft, vengeful voice, “one.”

“What was that babydoll? You gotta speak up,” he said and his still gloved hand rubbed the redness of my asscheeks, trying to soothe it but it was past that point.

“One,” I said louder this time and I knew the hate and rage was powerful in my voice. He stalked around to me, grabbed my chin so hard it would leave a large bruise in a few hours. “don’t give me that fucking lip. I’m adding more just for that,” he said and stalked out of my view.

I had to start all over again and when he was finally done, I had counted to 50. Around 30 I had lost count and had to start all over again. I was unbelievably sore, everything hurt and I knew I wouldn’t walk right for days after this. If Negan let me walk anywhere at all. I knew how controlling he could be, and I wouldn’t put it past him to try and lock me away now that I was pregnant. This occurred to me again and I looked down to my stomach, worried what affect this pain and stress might have on the baby. My heart was racing, I was bruising all over my face and ass, and I was still bleeding onto the mattress, enough that it looked like someone had slit one of their wrists, then only to change their minds and stop the bleeding.

I pulled my mind away from how I knew what that looked like and looked back into the pillow. It was wet with my saliva, and had ripped fabric from me biting into it to muffle the pained noises I had started making. I was sore, in a lot of pain and my thighs were shaking uncontrollably, despite me trying to stop them and not show any weakness at all. But my own body was betraying me.

Something cold touched my ass and I recoiled from it in reflex, then soft leather rubbed something onto them. I looked back into the pillow and said nothing, not making a noise or anything. I would not give in, not matter how much it hurt.

Negan pulled his hands away and I braced myself mentally for whatever he had planned next. I heard him laugh in his throat and I held back another snarl. “I said I’d have you screaming my name; and you will, one way or another,” he said into my ear and I felt his body press against mine. He was hard again and I felt him enter me, and it hurt. He was very big, and it had been a while for me, and I wasn’t prepped, and certainly wasn’t turned on. There was no slick in me to make the intrusion pleasant, or even bearable.

I looked into the pillow, not making a noise as he came inside me, several times, waiting a few minutes in between, slapping my ass a few times, then going again. His cum made it slick for him to go in after the first time, but it didn’t stop the painful stretch, or the burn, or the rage.

After the 3rd time, he sounded spent and he untied me. I didn’t more from my spot on the bed, my face still buried into the pillow. I blinked away the tears I had started to spill; I wouldn’t let him see them, I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. I wasn’t sure why I had started to cry. Aside from the pain I was feeling in my lower body, I guess it was all just so overwhelming, that this shell of a man was the father of the tiny precious baby growing inside me. And I wasn’t sure I could let it be born, knowing what Negan was capable of now. Just hours ago, he had looked all excited to be a father, but here he was raping and beating the mother of his unborn child. This world was bad enough, without someone like him as a father. I wasn’t sure I could live with myself, if I brought a child into the world with that in mind, with Negan. 

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Negan rolled Aura over and she blinked and looked away, but couldn’t hide the remnants of tears in her eyes. She smelt like cum, sex, sweat, with a faint overtone of blood. Negan looked down at her and a dark smile came across his face as he saw the tears trying to force their way out of her eyes.

“Did you learn your lesson?” he said to her darkly, putting his face right up to hers, his plastered smile inches from her face. Something came across her eyes, like she had made a decision, and she stared into his eyes, and he leaned back, taken aback. “and what lesson was that? What could you possibly have tried to teach me by raping me, beating me, ripping my ass open? It’s still bleeding, though I doubt you care enough to have even noticed I was bleeding at all. What was your point? Break me? You broke something in me, something ripped open when you split my ass in 2. Are you trying to fuck me so hard I lose the baby? Cause I’m not that far from it. A little more internal damage and the stress and blood loss will do it.” Her voice was low and dark, and Negan backed away from her in surprise and horror. The fuck was that all about?

She doubled over suddenly and vomited over the side of the bed. “If you don’t want the baby, just say so.” She said after wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. Negan slapped her again, her head flying back, not expecting that, and her nose started to bleed, and her lip was split. “is that a ‘I don’t give a flying fuck’?” she said even darker and Negan pulled away from her, the drunken stupor falling away from him almost instantly. He stalked out of the room, pulling on some clothes and left her in his bedroom, locking the door behind him.

She looked down at her stomach, touching it gently, letting tears fall freely now that she was alone. The bleeding wasn’t stopping. She pushed a pillowcase into her very painful ass, hoping the pressure would stop the bleeding, but wasn’t sure. The way it wasn’t stopping, she could very well bleed to death before sundown.

She looked down to her stomach, touching it gently and whispered to it. Negan was on the other side of the door but couldn’t hear what she was saying. He heard her get out of bed and she limped over to the bathroom, closing the door behind her. The shower started and Negan slumped into his chair behind his desk. He downed several drinks, and felt the stupor of the good whiskey in his drink finally getting to him.  
He finally stood up on wobbly legs and unlocked the door to his bedroom. He felt like he should say something, but the memory of him forcing himself inside her several times, slapping her, making her bleed, and then not even noticing that she was slowly losing blood because of him was haunting him. What could he possibly say? Sure, he had her now, stuck with him because of the baby, trapped under his thumb, but what kind of father would he be if this was how he treated the mother of his child?

He sighed, rubbed his face and walked over to the closed bathroom door. A faint crying sound me his ears and he opened the door. Aura was sitting in the tub, nose still bleeding, bruises on her face and chin, and the water was slightly pink from her blood. Her back was to him and she held her arms in front of her. She was cooing something in her arms. Negan walked up behind her and she looked around at him, and surprisingly, smiled wide.

“Thank you Negan,” she said after pecking his cheek with a faint kiss and he touched where her lips met his skin, a thrill shooting through his body. “You gave me this. Isn’t our baby just perfect?” she said and turned around, revealing what she was cradling in her arms.

Negan screamed, louder and more terrified than he had ever been before in his life. A bloody, squirming mess was in her arms, turning the water slowly red. It cried, eyes a lifeless white, covered from head to toe in blood and chunks of flesh. The thing in her arms smelt like a walker, dead and decaying, and it squirmed and cried loudly some more. Aura stood up from the bath, not a drop of blood on her, perfect skin, until she took a step towards Negan. Ripped intestines fell from her ass, trailing along behind her, leaving a thin, dark trail of blood behind her as she brought the dead, crying thing in her arms to Negan. He turned around to get out, to run for his life, to get away from this, but the door wouldn’t open.

“What’s wrong, Negan? You did this for us, to us. Why are you trying to get away? It’s your baby, our baby,” she said, her voice becoming deeper, almost demonic, then gurgling like she had water in her mouth. 

Each step she took, more intestines came out of her, leaving more blood behind her. Her stomach slowly bloated up, looking more and more like she was pregnant, barely showing, then when she was right in front of Negan, she looked ready to pop, fully 9months pregnant, though she held the baby in her arms.

She took one step further, and the baby in her arms reached for Negan, the dead walker eyes boring into his. He started to cry, begging them to stay back. “why would we stay away? This is your baby; I’m the mother. Is it because of that night? When you killed us both? When you were so drunk you didn’t notice that I was bleeding out?”

She paused and her voice was definitely dark and more demonic now. The bloody, mangled mess in her arms rolled out of her arms and splattered on the floor. She vomited, leaning over to the side, like she had done so many times the last few weeks. When she looked back at him, blood slowly began to leak from between her thighs, then small chunks of flesh and clotted blood came out a few moments later. They dripped onto the floor, pooling under her. When he looked up, her face was back to what it normally was, but her eyes where lifeless and white. 

“Is it because I lost the baby because of you? Or is it because you were such a horrible, detestable person that I couldn’t stand the idea that you would be the father of my precious baby? Is it because after what you did to me, after you hurt me, I couldn’t let you hurt my baby like that? Because I would never let you hurt my baby. Not like you can hurt me. I can take it, you know that. But my baby can’t.” she leaned closer to him, her mouth next to his ear, not unlike he had done to her already when he was raping her over and over again.

“Is it because you drove me to kill it? To save it from you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I went overboard on this chapter, but I felt like Negan needed something intense for him to change enough for the story to move forward. sorry about the long wait, I had some very bad writer's block on this story, but should be updating every few days from now on, until the end of the story.


	10. Life-Changing Decision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Aura wakes up after Negan's torture, she has trouble connecting with the baby inside her. And she has a choice to make on the baby's behalf: to go through with the pregnancy, if she hasn't already lost it, or prevent the baby from ever feeling the pain that she knows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ANOTHER INTENSE CHAPTER!!!! Heavy angst, thoughts of abortion, disturbing imagery, and mentions of non-con and torture.  
> YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. This chapter may also make some people cringe. I did, and I wrote it.

Negan fell out of his chair and onto the hard floor, spilling the rest of the whiskey in the finely chiseled bottle onto the carpet. It took his several moments before he stood up and realized where he was and what happened. The images of the bloody baby and dead Aura were still strong in his mind, and even in his sudden stupor he wasn’t able to get rid of them right away. He stood up, wiping the spilled rink from his leather jacket and looked to the bedroom door; it was still close and when he tried to turn the handle, he found it still locked.

He unlocked the door and peeked inside; Aura was sound asleep, bruises dark and obvious on her face, neck and what skin he could see. She twitched in her sleep, on her stomach and the entire room smelt like vomit. One of her arms was over the side of the bed and a dried puddle of vomit was on the floor, not far from where her head was resting on the bare mattress. The pillows were thrown into a corner, and all the things he had brought out to torture her with were piled into another corner, some of them broken or ripped. Her hands were bloody from the effort, though scabbed over.

Negan took a step inside and was hoping that most of what happened last night was a dream, a nightmare. But as he pulled the covers back, brown, dried blood covered the sheets, a decent amount of it too. She had lost a fair amount of blood last night and he wondered how much longer she had bled before falling asleep. He pressed a finger to her neck and felt a pulse, though it was racing, shallow and her breathing was short and shallow too. He took several steps back, locked the door behind him again and decided to start his daily rounds, as if nothing had happened.

I woke up several hours after Negan left the room and tried to suit up on the bed, to roll over and not look at the vomit on the floor, but was so sore and stiff that I couldn’t. I stretched my muscles, trying to make them more flexible, and felt spasms of pain shooting from my lower back to mid-thigh and everywhere in between. I cursed Negan for doing this to me. It took me several minutes after I was awake and several attempts trying to move before I was able to get onto my back, then slowly sat up, to look the damage over.

I was black and blue all over, dried blood and cum still cracking on parts of my skin despite the shower I took last night. The room smelt like blood, sex, cum and vomit, but mostly vomit. I took my time, trying get the pain to subside, but it wouldn’t. I leaned over, wincing and dug into the bedside tables, looking for what I knew Negan kept in there. His own private stash of powerful pain meds. I took 2, and leaned back against the headboard, waiting for the pain to subside.

I rubbed my face, and though I knew I should feel disgusting, and I did, but more than before I felt determined. This was the dark side of Negan I knew he had, the darkest depths of his soul, and there was no way in hell that I would let someone like that be a father to my child. No fucking way in hell. I wasn’t even sure if the baby had survived the night. There was a lot of blood everywhere, on towels, pillowcases and the bed, and in the bathroom, and I wasn’t sure it was all from the internal bleeding in my ass. I’d felt pain between my thighs, around the area where the uterus was, while Negan was on top of me. But there’d been too much blood for me to tell where it had come from.

It would be a few days before I was able to tell if I was still pregnant or had lost it. I would take another test, in a few days, and it would tell me whether or not I had lost it. The idea had me both shuddering in pain and loss and grateful at the same time. This life, especially with someone like Negan, wasn’t a life I would want for my child. If anyone was going to be a father with me, it would be Daryl.

I knew that Daryl didn’t know, otherwise Negan would’ve rubbed it in my face that he had told someone, and who he told, to see who I reacted to. I was glad that Daryl didn’t know, it would hurt him even more than the idea that I had slipped up and slept with Negan in the first place. The idea that Negan, the man that killed his friends and threatened and tortured him, and hurt the people he loved like family, would be parent with the woman he loved. I wasn’t sure he could handle it.

I vomited on the bed and got it all over me again; I tried to stand to get to the bathroom, but my legs wouldn’t move the way I wanted them too. I slid to the floor, gripping the bedsheets for support, ripping them loudly; I crawled, through some vomit from last night, to the bathroom and slid into the bathtub, turning on the water to cold and drinking as much as I could. I leaned over the side of the tub and vomited that up. The sweating and fever I had felt for almost 2 weeks on end was coming back; my heart was racing and I couldn’t stop it, and I had trouble catching my breath.

I clutched my stomach, then rubbed my lower back, trying to ease the pain, and some new bleed erupted from my ass. I could tell where this blood came from; I must have ripped open whatever scabs were stopping the internal bleeding. I lay in the tub, trying to calm down, to stop the racing heart, but I couldn’t. The water in the tub slowly turned pink, even as I shoved a towel up my ass to stop the blood and hopefully stop the bleeding. The pain was intense and the pills hadn’t kicked in yet.

It took several minutes before I felt a little better, the cooling water feeling good on my sweaty skin. I slowly and carefully pulled out the towel and no new bleeding started. I drained the tub and filled it up again, right as the pain meds started to kick in. I leaned back, the feeling of floating, not caring, more intense since I was in a deep tub; I couldn’t smile, even in this drugged euphoria, but my mind was blank and I suddenly didn’t care about anything, not even when Negan came into the bathroom.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Negan had done his rounds, but hadn’t been able to rail into anyone today like he normally did. His mind was still in his bedroom with Aura, passed out on his bed, covered in blood, vomit and his cum. His memory from last night was still rather fuzzy, but he remembered what he did to her and his stomach turned over. It wasn’t like he hadn’t done it to her before, but this was different. She was pregnant and any stress to her could cause her to lose the baby. His baby.

He had slunk into a closet and put his head against the cold wall and it felt good, until his mind replayed last night in his head. The blood, the whole memory of what he’d done, then the conversation with her about the baby. About how she would lose it. And it would be his fault.

He threw his fist into the wall and he yelled in anger, ignoring the pain in his knuckles as the skin split. It only occurred to him now, long after the fact, that what he did could very well kill the baby, and maybe her. If she lost the baby and then died, the people would have his head on a spike in less than an hour. 

He walked out of the closet and headed back to his room. He wasn’t sure what to say, or do, but he needed to start with getting her some meds, or something.

When he entered his bedroom, she wasn’t there, but the bathroom door was closed and he could hear some water running. He opened the bathroom door quietly and looked inside. The water was light pink, just like his nightmare, but aura was sitting in it, grabbing onto her lower body, doubling over; she leaned back and stuffed a towel into her ass, then took it out some time later. It was almost completely soaked in blood. She drained and refilled the tub and he watched a dopy look crossed her face. She was stoned as hell.

Negan walked over to her and touched her cheek, but she pulled back as he touched one of the many bruises on her face. He tried to wash them with a cloth, but she pulled away from him again, then grabbed his wrist and hissed at him. Her eyes were unfocused, and her lips were pale and had lost most of their plump, deep color. Her skin was abnormally pale compared to the bruises and she looked almost as white as his towels compared to the many dark, blooming bruises all over her body.

Negan drained the tub and picked her up, and she squirmed against him in the tub, but she had no effort behind it, no fire. He set her in a chair and she gasped in pain, and started to bleed again from her ass. Aura ran her hand over the blood and looked at it then looked down at the floor, then her stomach.

“I can’t feel it anymore,” she said cryptically. Negan changed the sheets on his bed as fast as he could and piled on the pillows to make her comfortable, then placed her gingerly on them. She had stopped bleeding, but she was still looking at the drying blood on her hands.

“There was blood. But I don’t feel it anymore,” she said again and Negan tried to get her to drink something. She sipped some water down, and some Gatorade, but she was just looking at the blood on her hands.   
Her unfocused eyes moved around each of her fingers and then she looked at her stomach again and touched it with her bloody hand, leaving marks across the skin. This disgusted and worried Negan, so he pulled her hand away and cleaned her hand off.

“There was blood. And pain. And I don’t feel it anymore,” she said again and Negan was getting annoyed with her drugged-out state. She looked from her hand to her stomach again and touched it there, with her clean hand, running her fingers over where the baby was growing inside her. She repeated the same thing over a few more times, the look on her face becoming more confused with each repeat. Negan pulled her hand away and touched her stomach where he hand had bene and she looked at him. She didn’t swat his hand away, but instead put her hand on top of his and she looked at him, confused.

“There was some blood and pain. Do you feel it?” she asked him and they both looked down at her stomach. Her eyes were unfocused, but concerned and confused as she looked at their hands on top of her stomach.

“Because I don’t feel it anymore.”

The dark understanding, foreboding and horror slowly crept into Negan’s mind as she looked him in the face then back at her stomach. She leaned her head back, not seeming nearly as concerned and repulsed as Negan was; and closed her eyes against the pillows behind her.

Negan finally understood what she was trying to tell him in her drugged out state, with no filter to stop her from telling him. She had felt some pain in her stomach area, and had seen it bleed.

She no longer felt the baby.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I woke with a jolt and groaned at the ache and pain in my body. I sat up and felt the faint leftovers from the pills I took. I had never handled the powerful pain meds very well. It was like a hangover, buzzkill and being hit by a semi all rolled into one once the pills wore off. 

I sat up and felt better than the night before, and looked to the window and saw the sun had gone down. I wondered how long I’d been out; when I sat up, I saw that I was in some new clothes, some food was waiting for me on a bedside table and Negan was nowhere to be found. Not like I wanted to see him right now, or ever again.

I got up and ate what I could without throwing it up again, and decided I needed to leave the sanctuary for an errand run. If I was still pregnant, though I wasn’t sure anymore, given the pain and the blood, the baby would be in a very bad way from all the stress my own body had been under. It wasn’t healthy, for me or the baby, and though it was killing me inside, there was only one real choice for me. I would hate myself for the rest of the my life for it, but there was no other option I was seeing with the shitty hand I’d been dealt. And if the baby was born with some kind of defect or issues, what could I do? We had nothing to treat a pre-me, or any kind of issue for that matter. It would be a slow and painful death for the baby. And that was the fate it would likely endure if nothing was wrong with it anyway. Or worse, it would end up like me, trapped with Negan for a father. I wasn’t sure what fate would be worse.

I found the bedroom door was open and so was the office door. I needed to leave the sanctuary for a run. 

Jared and Jimmy were more than willing to come and said Negan was in the sanctuary, but he was making some rounds on the outer fences and had been there since noon yesterday. I knew that he would try to stop me from going anywhere, so I was glad he was somewhere far from me. I had a feeling that if I saw him, I would beat him and wouldn’t stop until he was dead. Though there wasn’t much loss there.

Jared, Jimmy and I drove about half an hour away from the sanctuary to an overgrown field and I looked through the grass, looking for the rather weedy looking plant. It took me almost an hour to find the scraggly plant, but I recognized it and could tell exactly what it was. I collected the flowers and leaves, the parts I would need, and packed them into my pocket and joined the boys at the car. I sat on the ground with them, the sun slowly making its way over the horizon, at the fire and boiled the plants in the water I brought with me.

I stared at the brown-green liquid lightly steaming in the cup, 30 minutes later. Drinking this much would get the job done, no problem. I stared at it so long it got cold, looking at my rippling reflection. All I had to do was drink this large cup down, disgusting, smelly water, and Negan no longer had something to hold over me. The baby would be spared this life, be spared Negan, and any other horrors this horrible world would throw at it. No pain, no anguish, no hunger, no tyrant as a father. I gripped the cup tighter and the liquid inside shook a little bit, and it slowly got closer to my face.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Jared looked at Jimmy with a confused look as Aura contemplated the liquid in her hands, then stood up with her when she was done. The got into the car and left the field, the fire faintly smoking as the last coals died, the empty cup on the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did she do it? Did she drink the liquid that would kill her baby?


	11. The Battle of Infinity Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aura and Negan discuss what she did about the baby. Then, the Infinity return, but instead of attacking the biggest kid on the block, they target the Hilltop. Ready to end this threat once and for all, Aura rallies most of the Sanctuary behind her and Negan to fight.
> 
> POV switches several times to make interesting storytelling, and to give a better perspective. Parenthesis with stars around them are a flashback.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst in this chapter too, though less of it. Graphic depictions of violence. And war. Also, this chapter quite long, because I couldn't find a good place to break it up. Otherwise the chapters would've been very short.

Negan became aware that Aura was gone as noon came around, and saw that one of her favorite runners, Jared, was gone too, and a car. Fear and anger gripped him deep in the gut. He worried what she might do. Or if she was even coming back.

Less than an hour after he worried about that, she returned, a dark and sad look on her face; Negan stormed up to her, grabbed her by her arm and hauled her to his office, slamming the door behind them. He shoved her into a chair and she still had that dark, sad look deep in her eyes, but anger and fury were taking over. Well, he did deserve that.

“What the fuckity fuck did you do?” he leered over her and she snapped up to look at him and slapped him. “’What did I do’? Fuck you Negan. You should be asking yourself what you did. You raped me, ripped something in my rectum to bleed almost constantly, covered me head to toe in bruises, and on top of that, you don’t give a shit that I was carrying your kid. That is what you did.” Aura snapped at him ad pulled herself out of the chair, walking towards the door.

Negan grabbed her arm and yanked her around and she punched him this time and he knew he deserved that too. “Look,” he started to say and Aura started to laugh. “You seriously gonna try apologizing to me? There is no fucking apology big or long or powerful enough to make me forgive or forget. You don’t give a shit about me, or the baby. This is just something you are tying to push on me to make you feel less guilty about what you did. By the way, did I mention you could’ve killed the baby? You might have, I had pain in that area last night, and there was blood coming from me, and I wasn’t sure where it came from. So, yeah, there’s that.” Aura spat angrily at him and moved to leave the room, her hands going into her pockets, thinking about how she had just said it outloud.

Negan yanked her arm and her hand came out of her pocket, pulling some of the scraggly plant’s flowers with it. Negan pulled it from her hand as she tried to hide it and he looked them over.

“What the fuck are these?” Negan looked the flowers over and Aura looked him dead in the eye. “They’re a powerful uterine stimulant,” she said with her shoulders back, but her eyes were betraying her, filling with tears against her will.

“In fucking English,” he snarled and Aura crossed her arms, then looked down to the ground before looking back at him, her jaw set. “In Lameman’s terms, they cause abortion.”

Negan dropped the flowers and stared at her. Her eyes were hard, but that glitter of tears still lingered. “You didn’t leave me a choice Negan. You really think I’d want to bring a baby into a world with you? After what you did to me? Hell, you might’ve already beaten me to it. This was just to be sure. What kind of life would the baby have? With someone as domineering and violent and unpredictable as you as a father, they wouldn’t want to live in it. I wouldn’t want them to live in it. And even if it lived, there’s not much chance it would be born healthy. I can’t keep much down, and with you torturing me and ripping my inside to pieces, my body is a wreck. Women have spontaneously aborted after going through less. The baby would be weak, maybe pre-term; and there’s a long list of things you can chose from as a result.”

Aura crossed her arms and was embarrassed to find she had started to cry. Negan had backed away from her and was sitting at his desk, unwilling to look at her, and buried his face in his hands. It was the first time Aura had seen Negan show real weakness in front of her. He was always so careful to be his normal cocky self in front of her, even when they were alone. He looked more broken and weaker than after he found out Simon was dead. But she was past the point of caring. She was stone cold towards him, and probably would be until one of them was dead.

Finally he looked up at her, his eyes were glittering with tears, and Aura still felt nothing. She was no longer open to him, not after what he had done, after everything he had done, this had just been the final straw.

“What did you do, Aura?” he asked in a very soft voice and Aura found herself looking down at the ground, holding back her own tears. She shook herself to look up at him, then blinked at the ceiling.

“I was too weak.” Aura finally said after several long moments. Negan looked up at her and she looked down to the ground again before looking up at Negan and steadied her breath.

“Nothing. I couldn’t do it.”

The admission that I hadn’t been able to drink the liquid and end all the worry and anxiety I had for the baby and what it would have to endure for this life, was too much for me. I felt weaker than I had in a long time. 

I just didn’t have the heart to kill it.

Negan’s eyes slowly turned from teary and scared to slightly hopeful, but mine were turning darker. I had wanted to, so bad, but most of me wasn’t able to do it. In the end, with the liquid in my hands and just a few shallow gulps between the baby and freedom from all the pain I had known, I just couldn’t do it. I had all the reasons in the world to do it, so many good, solid, rational reasons to do it, but in the end, what I felt wasn’t rational. I wanted this baby to live, and I had a moment of optimism that it would have a better life than I had the last few years. Because something, deep, deep inside me, told me that Negan wouldn’t be a problem forever.

Negan had stood up and was standing next to me without me even noticing, too lost in my own mind. I subconsciously ran my hands over my lower stomach and wondered if I was still pregnant at all. I remembered the pain, and the blood, though I wasn’t entirely sure it came from the birth canal. I had no idea where it came from; there had been enough of it to lightly coat the entire area from my lower back all the way around to just below my pantyline, confusing me as to its source.

Negan looked to my lower stomach and I looked up at him and pulled away from him, the rage returning. He didn’t try to push himself against me again and I was glad he at least got that hint.  
Someone pounded on the door and we were both shook from the conversation as I turned around and answered it. A runner stood in the doorway, one of the new guys, and he had a bloody nose and looked like he had just run a marathon at top speed. He walked in and bowed his head for both of us and I looked at him, hand on his shoulder to calm him down.

What’s wrong? What happened?” I asked the panicked runner and he looked at me, still breathing hard. “It’s the Infinity people. They’re attacking the Hilltop.”

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

At the Hilltop, Jesus was fighting as many of the enemy as he could, and though he was good at it, he was just one man. There had to be a hundred enemies attacking, all with the red Infinity mark on bands on their arms or foreheads; some of the people that knew how to handle a gun or could fight decently were being marched into smaller groups to defend the place. The wooden spikes around the hilltop were already starting to smoke and burn as the Infinity set fire to them, to get in. at the rear of the community, a few parts of the wall were destroyed enough that some Infinity had already gotten in and the people of the community were being overrun.

Jesus commanded people, trying to get people organized, but it wasn’t a few minute after that when the fires in homes started, and screaming soon after. Cornered on all sides, Jesus knew this community didn’t have the able bodies to fight off the Infinity.

A deafening roar echoed through the air, and over a dozen men screamed as an explosion at the back of the Infinity ranks burst into flames. Jesus climbed to the top of the wall that wasn’t on fire or being overrun and he actually felt relief. He never thought he’d be grateful to see Negan or the Saviors.

**(“We gotta help them. If they fall, there won’t be enough healthy bodies left alive to take the Infinity on,” Aura said as she walked out the office door, the runner on her heels, and Negan not far behind. “Like hell you’re going,” Negan shouted at her and grabbed her shoulder and spun her around into the wall. His wives came out to the noise and looked from one to the other. Aura ripped her arm from his grasp and snarled at him, and he snarled back.

“I’m the best shot and best fighter you have. And the longer we argue here, the more people die at the Hilltop. You may not give a shit, but I do. And there is no way in hell I’m gonna stay here. You can lock me up, but I’ll just get out again. Besides, how many people will come with you, and I’m not there for support?” she leaned into his face and whispered the last part. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he knew it was true. No one could get people involved to fight for a cause like she could. Everyone that could in the Sanctuary would fight behind her, until death took them.

“Fine. Just…Fucking fine. But you fucking stay to the fucking back and snipe those Infinity fuckers from a safe distance. And no fucking going off on by your-fucking-self.”)**

Jesus saw a single arrow fly through the air and knew Aura was in the fight. He had never been so happy to know she was around. She was a decent person, for a Savior, and no one could shot a bow and arrow like her, or had better sniping skills than her. Except maybe Daryl. 

Shortly after a few arrows flew, Jesus could hear the sounds of a high-powered rifle and knew it was Aura shooting it. She was well versed in every kind of firearm that any of the communities had managed to get their hands on; the rearguard of the Infinity fell, one by one, either from Aura or the Saviors she and Negan had brought with them. It looked like most of the Sanctuary had come out to fight.

**(Aura and Negan stood on the stage once more, though it felt like last time had been so long ago. Aura looked from one face to another, raised her compound bow with the purple tape on the handle that made it obvious that it was hers, and shouted to the 400 people that were staring up at her, “Today, we fight to eliminate the Infinity, once and for all. Today, we rid ourselves of those men and women that killed just because they wanted to. And today, we avenge our fallen!”

Hundreds of voices shouted in unison and both Negan and Aura felt shivers down their spines at the sight and sound of almost 400 people united for a single cause, fists raised in the air, some clutching knives, guns and a variety of other weapons. Over half the Sanctuary was coming, the other half would remain behind because they couldn’t fight, and to defend the Sanctuary while the majority of fighters were gone. Aura and Negan walked off the stage, Dwight remaining behind to organize the guards and handle things while Aura and Negan went to fight. Negan led in the entire group, all of them crammed into vehicles, while Aura brought up the rear with the other that would hang back, mostly the ranged fighters like her. She rubbed her face, but she wasn’t worried about herself, she was worried about how much blood the people of the Sanctuary would need to spill to final be rid of the Infinity.)**

Aura was at the back of the entire fighting group, while Negan led the charge, fighting right into the heart of the Infinity people, and in a matter of minutes the Infinity were pinned, in the front by the rejuvenated people of the Hilltop, and in the back and all around the outside by the Saviors. She took aim at the ones that looked to be directing the infinity, taking them out one by one, to take out the leadership and confuse the rest of the enemy.

It worked for a while, and the infinity were becoming sloppy and desperate as one leader after another fell to Aura’s rifle. Negan forced his way through the ranks, Lucille and his gun taking out man after man, and the occasional woman, with the telltale infinity mark on their arm or head. Despite this being an obvious calling card to be targeted, none of them seemed willing to take it off.

Aura took aim at anther sniper, a band on their arm as they took aim from the over of a rooftop. She pulled the trigger and through the lens she could see, a second later, his head explode from the large and fast-moving bullet, brain matter and blood spraying all around his body. His gun dripped from his hand onto the ground and she wasn’t surprised when she saw Jesus run towards it and picked it up and slung it over his shoulder. He looked around for half a second, and their eyes met through her scope. He gave her a half-wave.

Jesus had never really grasped how good a shot Aura was until she took that shot of the man on the rooftop. It had to be 700 yards away from her position and the sniper had mostly been hidden from her behind another building and the still burning wall. He took the rifle from the ground and ran past the burning buildings, smoldering trailer homes and animal shacks, to one of the Hilltop’s best shooters and tossed it up to him. The kid’s face lit up like he had just been given the world as he looked the rifle over and took a position at the top of the mansion’s tower with a few other snipers.

Aura looked away from her rifle and looked around at the other long-range fighters around her. They were spread out, most of them laying on the roofs of the vehicles they had come in, and were also killing off any infinity that were trying to run, or anyone that turned into a walker. Their ammo was limited, so they needed to make the bullets count.

Aura heard a muffled scream not far behind her and she turned around to see a very large man slitting the throat of one of her snipers; rage bubbling in her and she turned the gun on him, but he was too fast and slapped it from her hands. His fist collided with her face and she fell off the car roof with a loud ‘oof’ but quickly got her bearings back. She rose to her feet in an instant and faced the large man that had to be almost a foot taller than her and looked to weigh twice as much as her, pure muscles that bulged out from under his too-tight shirt with ripped sleeves. Blood was splattered all over his body, from his grimy shoes to his dirty face, even on his lips, and he licked it off. Aura forced down the need to vomit when she saw him do that.

Aura pulled out her small knife, not sure it would be long enough to get into his meaty body, but she knew all the kill points on the human body, and it wouldn’t take much to make him bleed out without him even feeling it. Though he was massive and intimidating, he was slow. Aura was fast and nimble, and dove out of his reaching grasp and slashed the knife across his arm, a few inches down his arm from his armpit. He snarled at her, sounding like a caveman when he did, and he took a swing at her, and missed; she dug her knife into his hand as he swung again, but it stuck into his hand and he just pulled it out like it was little more than a splinter.

Aura couldn’t help the smirk that played across her face as he took a step towards her and then looked like he was about to pass out. He looked at his arm, where Aura had slashed him, and a lot of blood had made its way out of the cut without him realizing it. He took another step towards her, then fell to the ground, trying to claw his way to her, but his head fell onto the ground. Aura retrieved her knife and plunged it into the head of the huge man with a grunt. It took 2 tried to get the knife back out.

Aura stood up, wiping the knife off on the man’s pants, then swung around when she heard someone behind her. Her knife grazed the lower arm of another infinity man, but it wasn’t in the right place to make him bleed out. He shoved her back into the side of the car, hard enough to leave a dent and her breath was knocked out of her for a second. She got it back in time to duck his stab to her neck, and got up underneath his arms and punched him in his ribs. She heard and felt them break under her barrage of punches, and the man fell away from her, gasping for breath, and shortly after coughing up blood.

Aura was focused on the man gasping for air and coughing up blood in front of her that she didn’t hear the other man coming up behind her until he was right behind her. She spun around to stop his attack, catching a knife through her hand she yelled in pain, then kicked the man in the stomach and threw him back from her as the broken ribs man came at her. She turned to him, punched him in the ribs again and then took his knife from his hands and stabbed him in the neck with it. He gurgled loudly as he bled out and grabbed at his neck, trying fruitlessly to stop the bleeding, then he fell over, eyes wide with shock, now lifeless and blank.

Aura was distracted while she stabbed the man in the neck she didn’t realize the other man had gotten up and was slowly creeping up on her. She didn’t hear him until he was right behind her and she was only half-turned around to meet him when his knife dug into her shoulder. She spun around to face him, the knife stuck in her arm and stopping her from moving her arm much without causing more damage. Aura was minutely aware of Negan running to her, and looked sideways at him. The man in front of her tried to lay in a punch, but she blocked with her good arm. But she didn’t see his leg come up to kick her as hard as he could.

His leg came into contact with her, on a full swing with all the force he could put behind it, into her lower stomach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think the next few chapters will be some more fighting, then dealing with the aftermath. They will probably come out close together. Luv4uall!


	12. Loss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The results of the kick to Aura's stomach is revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots and lots of angst in this chapter. A trigger warning is also needed for what will happen.

Negan watched in slow-motion as a man kicked Aura in the lower stomach. She fell to the ground in a slow, graceful arch, grabbing onto her lower belly in pain, and even from this distance, he could see something slowly turning her jeans a darker color, running down her inner thighs. 

He swung Lucille, with all the rage and vengeance he had in him, into the head of Aura’s attacker, and his head caved in, popping out both his eyes and blood spurted out from his nose and ears. He yanked Lucille from the caved in head and turned, in slow-motion to Aura, who was grabbing onto her stomach, her face scrunched in pain, then watched as her hand slowly worked down to the wetness between her legs. When her fingers emerged from the dark smears on her thighs, sticky red blood clung to them.

The world seemed to stop for them both, though only for a moment, as it dawned on them what that meant, what the blood, the pain meant. Aura, stared at the sticky blood, then grabbed her stomach and looked down, unable to look at anything other than the still slowly flowing blood steadily moving down her inner thighs, unable to feel anything other than a powerful jolting cramp in her lower belly, and the sudden, unexplainable emptiness, the faint feeling in her body that she was never alone was gone.

Aura looked up after several minutes to see Negan staring, then eh ran back into the still-ongoing war, but with more rage than before. He was no longer the controlled, taunting leader of the Saviors; he was now the man that had lost an unborn child. Aura looked away from him, then at her stomach and finally looked at the man that had kicked her in the stomach. As terrible as it sounded, and as terrible as it made her feel, most of her knew it was for the best. The baby would never know this terrible world: pain, blood, loss, danger, the feeling like they lived on the edge of a cliff and the tiniest slip would send anyone, or everyone, to their deaths on the rocks below. The baby was better off this way, and so was Aura. She didn’t care what Negan had to say about it.  
But a small part of her wanted the baby, though it was a very small part; that was why she couldn’t drink the abortion-causing herbal tea.

A loud, rumbling explosion brought Aura back to her senses and she stood up, ignoring the wetness between her legs, and the stabbing pains in her stomach, and she climbed back onto the roof of the car and resumed the fight.

A few hours later, when it was getting dark and sunset was just a few minutes away and storm clouds that threatened snow gathered in the distance, the fighting was done. The Infinity had fallen, leaving a handful alive for Negan to question and get the location of their homebase. The few minutes before sunset were spent dragging away the dead, and piling up the Infinity into a large burn pile, while either taking back the saviors to the factory for funerals or the Hilltop prepped their own funerals. The death toll was large, and though most deaths were the Infinity, there were losses on all sides. From what I could tell, about 40 had died from the Hilltop, a large number, though most were dead in the first attack, before the saviors arrived to fight. The saviors were still counting dead as I stood in the main area of the mansion, talking with Jesus and ignoring the incompetent Gregory. 

“I never thought I’d be happy to see Negan,” he said with a hint of snark and I laughed when he said this, hiding the fact this caused another stab of pain in my lower abdomen. Cramps would bother me for several days, after losing a baby. Oddly, despite the loss and the want I had to be a mom someday, this loss was something I had come to terms whit rather fast. It was for the best, for all parties involved. It spared the baby the pain of this life. And spared me the pain too. And it spared Daryl knowing that I had a child with the man he hated more than anything or anyone.

“We’ll be happy to see you once Negan gets the home base out of the survivors. From what I’ve gotten, the Infinity are cannibals on top of everything else they’ve done,” I said, making an obvious face of disgust. Jesus made one similar to mine then looked down for a second as he looked his empty gun over and noticed the dark stains on my legs. I turned to the side so he wouldn’t see them anymore and he didn’t press it.

We walked, side by side, out of the manor and looked at the last rays of sunlight dancing over the landscape; I heard the calls of family still looking for one another and crying if they found them dead, Negan cursing someone out, and the crackling of a large fire at the bottom of the hill, where the dead Infinity were being burned without thought or regard. I looked over to Negan, who was on a warpath still and sighed.

“I better get some damage control done,” I said and clapped Jesus on the back and he nodded to me and gave me a quick, one-armed hug before walking back into the manor.

I walked out through the damaged gates already the repair work was starting. Some torches and flashlights were placed to get the fence and gate back up, to get something in place, because the sounds of people, and smell of freshly-spilt blood, was calling every walker for miles around. A large van rolled to replace the gates for the time being, and I ducked past a few early walkers, slashing into their heads with my knife, then finding Negan in one hell of state. He looked wild-eyed and unhinged, and was already interrogating one of the prisoners.

I walked up to him, and placed a hand on his shoulder for him to calm down, but all it did was get him angrier. He spared a glance down my legs to the dark patches there and ripped off a fingernail of one of the Infinity, someone who looked barely 20.

I yanked Negan around to look at me, and his eyes were alight with fire, rage and something that wouldn’t be reasoned with. I pushed him away from the captive, told someone to hogtie them all up and stuff them with the dead. I pushed Negan into his car, told someone else to drive mine, and we all took off, one car following another.

It was well past dark when we made it back to the compound, and thankfully, nothing had happened while we were gone, though I think some things might’ve been stolen from the storage area; it looked emptier than before we left. Everyone that wasn’t allowed to carry a weapon inside the compound, everyone but me, a few others and Negan, all dropped off their guns, knives and blunt weapons at the weapons storage and headed in for a good night sleep.

I told everyone that had fought they would receive a lot of points for what they did; though I wasn’t sure how many. Some people were pleased, others angry I hadn’t mentioned this before, otherwise they would’ve gone. I rubbed my face and sighed; I was too exhausted for this conversation.

“Look, everyone, turn in for the night. Tomorrow, we’ll take care of the dead and dedicate the day to mourning. Breakfast and dinner will be on the house, and breakfast will be around 10am, we all need a good sleep. Funerals after dinner,” I said and looked to Dwight, who could see just how tired we were. Though Negan wouldn’t let it show as much as me, he was tired too, I could see it in his eyes. It was dawning on him that we lost some good people, including one of his favorite new runners. Dwight nodded to me and he walked off to tell the kitchen staff to make breakfast later in the day, and to help bring in the dead, and the captives. They would be locked up in the basement storage rooms, which had been modified to be more like jail cells and dungeons, complete with restraints. Negan would start on them in the morning.

I walked with my hand on Negan’s shoulder, steering him up the stairs to his room and his wives came out to make sure he was alright. I left him in their hands and headed down a side hall to my own room. It was a welcome sight after the horrible few days I’ve had, and fell onto the mattress, sound asleep before I even bothered to change my clothes.

My dream was about the baby I had lost. It was a surprisingly pleasant one, where a tiny little glowing ball floated through the air, nad when it touched me, I could see where it was now. Behind me was the world I lived in, covered in clotting and fresh blood, chunks of flesh and vicious monsters, alive and dead. In front of me was the world where my lost baby was now: bright and cheerful, a green, luscious park on a nice summer day, with a light breeze playing through the full trees, birds singing loudly and an occasional kite darting through the sky. I felt happy, comfort and joy when I looked in front of me, where my baby was now. It was peaceful.

When I woke up, I wiped happy tears from my eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is a shorter chapter, but I love the ending, the closure it brings Aura. Next one up soon. Luv4uall!!


	13. Meeting of the Minds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In preparation for the impending final war on the Infinity, Aura heads to meet with the largest and fiercest communities to join in the fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feels in this chapter, lots of feels.   
> **( is the start of a flashback.   
> )** is the end of a flashback, since I can't seem to get italics to work.

The next day was a blur, devoted to everyone getting some rest, cleaning their weapons, taking inventory of what was used, and mourning the dead. When all was said and done, we lost 31. And I knew each and every one of their names.

Because burying the dead was too dangerous, and we didn’t have enough space in the fences, we burned the dead outside the compound, at a large pyre where half the Sanctuary could gather and we wouldn’t be squished, and it was easy to defend. The dead savior was placed on a small pile of wood, the faces covered at the very least, though they were often wrapped up tightly in rags or sheets, and looked like mummies when placed gently on the woodpile. Before the fire was lit, I thought it important to remember how the deceased lived, not how they died; so stories were told, some very nice and comforting, others were funny and got laughs, others were embarrassing and I was sure the deceased would blush if they could.

Then someone who knew the deceased, or Negan or I, would light the woodpile, and everyone would stand in respectful silence for a few minutes before they would begin to disperse. Once the fire had died down, the ashes were pushed around, scattered into the area, and the next funeral would start.

To honor those that died fighting, I came up with the idea that some members of the compound would carve the lost fighters’ names into the wall of the main meeting room. They were at it all day, and well into the next.

A few days after the battle of hilltop, as everyone was starting to call it, Negan had finally cracked one of the infinity to get the location for their main home base; Negan wanted to destroy it now, attack now, and I had to physically restrain him in the meeting room as he started to stand like he would take them all on himself. I had no doubt he would want to take them all on, but we needed to be smart about this: like we had done, the Infinity had likely left a decent portion of their members at the main base, sending only their fighters.

But I also knew we needed to attack soon. We had killed over 100 Infinity, so their numbers were as low as they were going to get. Granted their defenses would be very high right now; they would assume we found their location and would come for them, to finish this. My goal, my want, was to get the Hilltop, Kingdom and Alexandria in on this as well. Though Daryl’s community was low in numbers, they had a lot of good, intense fighters. My idea was to spilt whatever loot we got according to population.

So, 5 days after the battle of Hilltop, I sent messages, via a messenger on a moped, which made me chuckle, to all 3 communities, asking them to meet me at the manor at Hilltop in 3 days, at noon. I even added I would bring lunch.

Negan wouldn’t be able to attend. Though he was the physical embodiment of health, at least on the outside, the stress of the last few months were getting to him. He had gotten a small infection in a wound, and it had given him a fever. On my orders as doctor, he was to remain behind, though there was no shortage for him to do at the Sanctuary. I knew he would want to lead the attack on the Infinity home base, and that would be non-negotiable; he needed to plan for that, and as much as I hated to admit, he was an excellent strategist.

I got messages back rather fast from all 3 communities; none of them said yes or no. I knew the hilltop was still reeling from their losses, and from what the messenger told me, the gate was up, but the fences were still being repaired and replaced, and many of the mobile homes inside the wooden walls were past saving.

So, my hopes weren’t high when I left the Sanctuary 3 days later and drove a small car to the Hilltop. Dried blood, burned piles of bones and wood, and random broken weapons littered the steep slope when I left the car at the base of the hill. The hill was covered in fresh snow, so the car wouldn’t make it up the slope. Next to me was my new favorite, Jared, the young runner but he had a good eye and was willing to bend over backwards for me. He carried some of the lunch I had promised: a jar of pickles, homemade bread, a few small bottles of mustard, mayo and ketchup, while I flung a cooked leg of a boar over my shoulder in a large sack.

When we got neared the gates, I noticed a very obvious vehicle, and I had to force myself not to drop the boar leg on my back. I had told the leaders of the other 3 communities they could bring one other person with them; and judging by the motorcycle parked just outside the gate, I knew who Rick had brought.

Taking a deep, steadying breath as Jared gave me a knowing look, I knocked on the recently made gate and it slid open, revealing a very tired Jesus and bustling people carving and treating wood for the walls. I slid in and Jared stared around. He hadn’t really been in the Hilltop in the daytime, we spent the night last time and took off as soon as it was light enough. Plus, he hadn’t really seen the devastation of the fight. I looked around, and in the clear, bright light of a very cold winter day, I could see what the battle of Hilltop had really done.

About half the trailers that once housed someone had been damaged, and about a third of them were nothing more than burnt-out shells. Everyone had red, puffy eyes from crying and most of them wore gloves as they worked, others bled as they pulled out splinters. The atmosphere was subdued, quiet and there was no normal semblance of relative calm that came from a normal day, even in the undead apocalypse. 

Everyone looked up and stared openly at me and Jared as we walked into the manor, and I was holding my breath the entire time. I wasn’t sure what Daryl knew, or if he even did know about the baby. I wouldn’t be able to hide it from him. From the stares I got, some actually showing pity, I was able to get that some of the people of the Hilltop had found out about the baby I was carrying, and its loss.

**(Daryl and Rick arrived about an hour early for the meeting, not looking forward to any of it, but it was needed. The Infinity posed more of a threat than Negan did, though Rick would never forgive Negan for what happened to Sasha, or to Olivia. Spencer, he didn’t really care if he was being brutally honest, the kid had lived a lot longer than he would’ve if he’d been on the road like him. Rick looked to Daryl as his best friend and brother leaned his prized motorcycle outside the gate, or at least it looked like the gate. The wood was brand new, and they could still smell the freshly cut wood smell on it, and it was still sticky from the fresh coat of stain. They’d heard about the fight with infinity, how it happened here and the saviors had shown up at just the right time and hadn’t even demanded anything so far as payment. Rick had a feeling that was Aura’s doing.

Shortly afterwards, Jesus greeted them in the manor and they walked into the main dining room; Ezekiel was already there, though he looked and felt naked with Shiva, accompanied by his lt. Jesus was accompanied by Maggie, and refused to let Gregory be part of the proceedings, the man was a complete idiot. Rick, Daryl and Maggie hugged, and Glenn popped his head in to see them and they hugged too. Maggie was doing better, she looked healthier, and was just beginning to get the faint bump that made wearing jeans a little awkward.

Glenn left after the hello and headed back out to help repair the walls, and finish the cleanup. The dead had already been taken care of, that had to be done first or risk disease, so repair work and cleaning was the focus of the remaining Hilltop members. Jesus and Maggie sat at the table and started up conversation about the battle that happened less a week ago.

“We were losing ground so fast, I was sure we’d lose. Then a fleet of cars comes out of nowhere, and Negan gets out of the first one, leading over 200 people here. I saw Aura at the back, she’s one hell of a good shot, lethal at 700 yards,” Jesus spoke about Aura, knowing it would get Daryl’s attention and it did. They were interrupted when someone came in and spoke quietly to Jesus about something, and he nodded, then the woman turned to the group at large.

“I hope Negan doesn’t come. Doubt Aura will though, poor thing,” she said and she was oblivious to Jesus glaring at her to shut the hell up. “What happened?” Daryl was first to ask and he gripped his crossbow hard for comfort. “Why, she lost her baby on the battlefield.” The woman paused in her thick country accent and was still oblivious to Jesus, who was now gently nudging her, and barely hiding a snarl.  
“But I think she’s better off. Some woman from the Sanctuary said it was Negan’s,” she stated matter-of-factly, and Daryl became pale, gripping his glass of water so hard it shattered, and the woman was shoved from the room.)**

I followed Jesus through the sad and subdued crowds and we entered into manor together. Jared had been here already, but hadn’t really had a chance to look around. If the meeting was over soon enough, I’d let him walk around the community for a while and look around. I wanted to see Daryl anyway. Before entering the meeting room, I looked at Jesus, to see if he would give anything away, about the mood in the meeting room, what was going on, and when I got close to him, I smelt bourbon on his breath. I raised an eyebrow, looking at Jesus and he looked away with a faint smirk on his face and I looked away, a faint smirk on mine. I would love a drink right now, get some liquid courage in me.

Jesus opened the door to the meeting room and I looked around, from one leader and their companion to another; Ezekiel had come, sans Shiva (I was kind of disappointed), with his lieutenant, and he had brought some food to pass as well, not what I was expecting. It looked like cornbread, and I could smell it clear across the room, and my stomach rumbled angrily at me. Maggie, the woman who had pregnancy issues and was married to the attractive Asian man named Glenn, sat next to the only empty seat at the table, where Jesus was heading as he walked through the hall and slid into the seat, a little clumsily. On the far side of the table sat Rick, his colt Python at his hip, a stern look in his steely blue eyes, and Daryl sat next to him, downing a nearly full glass of the bourbon. When he looked up at me, after several long moments, our eyes met. And just from his look, I could tell: he knew.

**(Daryl sat in the chair, stunned and unable to think about anything for a while, until rick placed a firm hand on his shoulder and looked him hard in the eye. They said nothing with their mouths, but they were close enough that neither of them had to say anything. Daryl loved Aura more than he had loved anyone before in his life, and he had lost her once already, and had thought her dead for a long time. That was the hardest thing to deal with in his entire life, even harder than when they lost Beth. Losing Aura, rick was sure that would break his best friend; but 2 months after thinking she was dead, she returned, looking healthy, though very tired. That was one of the happiest moments for Daryl, seeing her again, then for it all to come crashing down with that admission of hers, about Negan. But he couldn’t lose her, not again. And nothing would make him fall out of love with her, nothing, not even the knowledge that she had, if only for a short time, been carrying Negan’s unborn child. That didn’t mean it was easy, though.)**

I made my way over to the empty spot at the table, which was a small square table, and set the leg of boar on the table, pulling it out and Jared placed down the rest of the food. Jesus disappeared for a moment, then came back with some plates. The silence was a little awkward, especially when I pulled out a switchblade, then I started cutting the leg into slices for the sandwiches.

“I thought this would go better if we talked over lunch,” I said simply and looked from one person to another, then Daryl stood up and piled some boar leg onto his plate, sat down and wolfed it down. I stifled a giggle as he at it fast, making some kind of obscene noises as he did, then sucked on his greasy fingers when he was done. Then he stood up and got some more, once everyone else started to get some. I put some meat, bread and a slice of the delicious-smelling cornbread on my plate and sat back in my chair as Maggie poured some bourbon for everyone.

Rick slid back into his chair and a faint smile played across his face, for the first time in he didn’t know how long. He hadn’t really known Aura, but her propensity to be kind and forgiving was admirable. She seemed to have no end to the kindness that was in her, even after he had condemned her to death. Rick swirled the bourbon in his glass and sipped it, but Daryl was downing his 3rd glass of the day, while Maggie sipped some water, though she eyed the bourbon with a faint twinge of desire on her face. But she was pregnant, so any booze was off-limits. Rick sit back in his chair, more at ease in here than he had been since her first found Alexandria; for some reason, Aura was able to do that, to make people feel at ease.

When everyone was eating, and had some food in their stomachs, I looked from one leader to another, then settled on Jesus. “so, I’ve seen some of the damage left behind by the Infinity. How are the repairs coming along?” I asked him and he looked at me and sighed. “A lot harder than I thought they would be. We’ve had trouble treating the wood because it’s so cold. And any trees we try to get are really brittle, so they break and splinter when they get worked on,” he said and he looked like it was a relief to get things out in the open.

“I figured as much; you need some more people? I know some of my people are getting cabin fever from the winter. They’ll take any opportunity to get out. They’re starting to climb the walls,” I said matter-of-factly and looked at Jesus. He looked beyond shocked that I had offered some help.

“Look, you can take the offer or not, doesn’t matter to me either way. I just thought you’d want the help, considering the Infinity are still out there, and you’re all much more vulnerable without the walls up. Negan wants your walls up yesterday; he says it protecting an investment,” I said with a hint of disdain for Negan’s choice of words.

“Where is Negan?” Rick finally asked, and I looked at Daryl before I looked back to Rick. “He’s got an infection from a warwound. He’s currently running a fever, so he’s staying at the Sanctuary, planning our attack on the Infinity compound.” I looked at Rick and saw some intense determination on his face. “Negan finally cracked the infinity that we kept alive. He found out where their compound is, along with more about them. Namely the fact they take in children, but the children don’t live very long. Apparently, the entire compound is one big mass of cannibals.”

“That’s why ya called this meetin’? You wan’ our help?” Daryl finally asked, accent thick in his drunken stupor. “Essentially, yes. From what Negan’s gathered, there’s still around 250 Infinity members at that compound. We join together, combine our weapons and manpower, and we can eradicate every last one of them.” I stopped and pulled out a few pieces of handwritten paper from my coat and placed it on the table. “Odd as it sounds, Negan wants it in writing. Basically, it’s a temporary alliance, to eradicate the Infinity. Their compound will be burned to the ground once everything they have has been taken; none of the infinity are allowed to live. Everything taken will be divided according to number of people provided from each community, and also if they provide firearms, bullets, or first aid of any kind. Negan’s already got about half the Sanctuary ready and itching for this fight,” I said and frowned when Ezekiel’s lieutenant said with a dark smile, “Anything to spill blood, huh?”

I snarled at him, got up and ran across the room, grabbing the guy by the neck and slamming him against the wall before Ezekiel had even realized I got up. Daryl stood up, ready to fight, but Rick was looking amused. “We lost 14 when the Infinity attacked our compound, and 31 here less than a week ago. So, yeah, they’re ready to spill some blood.” I was snarling at him, and Ezekiel stood, but was unsure how to get me off his companion. I was Negan’s stand in, and one of the most powerful people in this region, considering my standing in the Sanctuary. I made the decision for Ezekiel when I let his companion go and slammed him back into his chair.

I walked back over to mine and downed the rest of the glass of bourbon. Rick cleared his throat and I looked over at him politely, a softer look on my face. “Well, I can give you Daryl, Michonne, Abraham, Tara, Rosita, and at least 3 others from the Alexandria. Rosita and Tara are in the clinic,” he said and I nodded. From that party in Alexandria some time ago, I remembered Tara, and I had liked her. “Found some ammo and guns last week, we’ll bring those, only if you can insure Negan won’t take them soon as the fight’s done,” Rick added and I rubbed my face. “I can’t promise that, as much as I want to. Doubt he’ll bother taking anything unless it’s really badass. We’ve got plenty of guns, and not everyone we’re bringing can use them. I’m pretty sure I can talk Negan out of taking any of your guns, just can’t promise it,” I said honestly and I could tell Rick wasn’t pleased, but was at least happy I was being honest. It was more than what Negan would give him, anyway.

“My Kingdom is filled with knights willing to see this to the end. I can promise at the very least 40 able bodies, all thirsty for a fight, 5 steeds, and 4 vehicles,” Ezekiel said and I laughed inside at his way of talking, how he sounded like a medieval king. Jared was smiling wide and looked amused as Ezekiel spoke and I gave him a faint warning look to keep the laughter inside. He hid his giggling in his glass of bourbon.

“We’re pretty spent from fighting, and we still have a lot of shit to finish, but I know there’s gotta be a few dozen here looking to even the score,” Jesus said and Maggie looked from him to me, and I nodded to him. “If I bring some help from the Sanctuary to at least get some temp walls up, you think you can talk more people into it?” Maggie looked beyond shocked that I even offered, or that I could convince anyone in the Sanctuary to get out and help another community, but Jesus wasn’t surprised at all.

“Like I said, people are starting to climb the walls. Negan’s on edge, making everyone else on edge. They all know war’s coming, and a lot of them want to even the score. Robby couldn’t make it here last week, but he lost his dad when the Infinity hit the Sanctuary; he’s been itching to finish this. Been at the range for hours every day to prove to Dwight he can cut it. Negan’s hasn’t made an official announcement in the Sanctuary yet, but everyone in there knows what’s coming. He’s waiting for me to get back from this meeting before he makes it official,” I said and looked at Maggie, then hazarded a glance at Daryl. He was getting drunk, I think he was on his 5th glass, but damn could he hold his liquor.

With a smirk I looked at Jesus as he thought about it and looked at Maggie. “You think more would fight if we had walls up?” Jesus asked her and she wasted no time in nodding. “If we had walls around us again, they won’ worry ‘bout bein’ attacked. And I know most everyone here wants revenge,” she said in a thick country accent that made me smile. Kind of reminded me of Daryl’s except his was more clipped, and more obvious.

“That a yes?” I asked as I stuffed the rest of the cornbread into my mouth and licked the crumbs from my fingers. Jesus looked at Maggie, how nodded and Jesus stuck out his hand to shake mine. I took his hand and shook it. “Alright, I’ll bring a dozen or so people over either tomorrow or the next day, a little after sunup, with some tools, and food for their lunch. I’ll be back for them before sundown. In exchange, you’ll provide more people for the attack on the infinity compound,” I said, stating the terms. “Sounds like a plan,” Jesus said after short pause and I smiled lightly at him.

“With that done, can everyone gather round? I’ve gotta write out the terms of our agreement, then the leaders sign it and your companion witnesses it,” I pulled out a pen and wrote down everything we had discussed. It took what felt like forever, and my hand was cramping about halfway through, so Jared took over for me while I dictated what it should say. It laid out what everyone was bringing, along with after-care needs. I would remain behind after the battle and care for the injured, along with Pam, my new assistant in the medical bay. The goods taken would be divided up according to personnel and needs contributed. Negan would end up with the lion’s share, because we were giving the most people and most guns. And Negan would bring more guns than we had people, in case any of the other communities needed some. Maggie was beyond surprised, but I just looked at her and shrugged.

“Negan wants this to be over, and so do I. He’ll get over pretty much any of this if we kill every single Infinity; they’ve been a pain in everyone’s asses for a long time. And before you think or say it, don’t think they’d be better than Negan. I’ve watched the Infinity burn down a compound, leave people for dead, rape several women, women that are now living here, and killed and burned everyone, including several children. Not even Negan will stoop that low. Contrary to popular belief, he likes kids,” I said shortly and Jared looked at me with a guilt-ridden face. “you didn’t write that all down, did you?” I asked him with a half-angry, half-laughing glimmer in my eyes. He looked down at the paper and started to quickly cross out several lines. I burst out laughing and sipped the rest of my bourbon.

A few hours later, and the sun was about to set, and the paper was done. Everything was laid out, in ink, and we each took turns signing it. I folded it back up and stuffed the paper into my coat and shook hands with everyone there. Jesus looked down at the half-eaten boar leg. I carved out the bone, then told him to eat the meat before it went bad. I wasn’t dragging that back to the sanctuary and calling every wild animal for miles around. I took the bone for some stock, bade everyone farewell and told Jared to head out ahead of me.

Once Jared was gone, I slid into a dark and cold hallway and found Daryl leaning against the wall, his eyes kind of unfocused as he looked me up and down as I got near him. “Daryl,” I started but Daryl cut me off with a hard and powerful kiss. I met him after less than a second to think about it and pushed him back against the wall, my hands getting into his long hair. After several long moments of kissing, our lips feeling like sparks were flying between us, I pulled back and leaned my head into his chest, listening to his heart and breathing. It felt wonderful, his heat, his muscular chest, his smell of campfire, gasoline and wet leaves engulfing me as his hands wrapped around my back and pulled me closer to his body. I mouthed at his neck and heard his faint grunt: that was one of his weak spots, and I congratulated myself on his reaction. 

We held one another for several nice, long moments, but it felt too short when I heard Rick calling for Daryl and I pulled away and looked at him. I brushed his long hair from his face and he put his forehead to my shoulder and I wrapped my arms securely and comfortingly around his wide torso. He breathed me in, and I knew he was thinking about what he had found out, about the baby, and about it being Negan’s. I pulled away from him and opened my mouth to speak, but he cut me off with another kiss.

“Don’,” he said after another long kiss and I knew he didn’t care. He didn’t want to talk about it, but he didn’t care, because he loved me too much to care.

I sighed in relief and pressed out foreheads together, and heard rick just around the corner, calling for his best friend. I looked at him in the eyes, pressed my lips to his cheek and said in a gentle, loving voice, “I’ll see you again soon.”

A few minutes later, I was sliding down the slope, the slick snow and frozen blood making it hard to get a good grip on the ground. After a few slips and one rather embarrassing trip into a pile of muddy snow, I made it back to the car with Jared in it, looking at me knowingly, a faint smile playing on his face. I gave him a look and we took off, driving back to the Sanctuary, with the final piece that Negan needed to finish his plan of attack.

The final battle on the Infinity was about to begin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of a filler chapter, but it's a nice break from the angst and intensity I've had going on lately. Hope you liked the feels, especially at the end. Luv4uall!


	14. It Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final preparations for the battle take place, and a new and unwelcome face enters the Sanctuary leadership circle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A very faint non-con warning, but it ends up being more comical than angsty. Warning still issued. This is also a longer chapter.

Before long we were back at the Sanctuary and Negan was waiting for me and Jared on the other side of the gates. He looked better than the last time I saw him: he was no longer sweaty, clammy and kind of pale, but now he had color back in his lips and cheeks, and he had that familiar smirk back on his face. When I stepped out of the car, I saw that looked like the entire sanctuary, all 400 of them, were waiting for me to say something. They wanted to know that this would soon be over, the war and the bloodshed, and that we wouldn’t be doing it alone.

“I got it in writing. Alexandria, the Kingdom and The Hilltop will fight with us,” I said and pulled out the papers from my coat and handed them over to a grinning and eager Negan. He looked them over and I saw his smile get wider and wider, until it was like he looked like a dark, sinister jester who had nothing but bloodshed on his mind. And this was all he was thinking about: the final bloodshed, the final attack. But he wasn’t stupid, he was also thinking about what those papers in his hands entailed, and the chance he had to make the leaders bend to his will, make them see that he had the people, the numbers, and the guns on his side, to show our true strength and what his people at the sanctuary were willing to do for him.

But he also knew, it wasn’t him they would be fighting for: it was to end the fighting, once and for all, and it was for me. I was the one that motivated the people to fight, to go into battle, to die, not him. They feared Negan, they respected me, and I knew, in the end, it would that respect that would win the people over, if I ever needed to decided. And I also knew that time was coming. Maybe not soon, but it was coming.

Negan had a plan in place for storming the compound where the Infinity were hiding, and we all knew they’d be expecting us. He went over the plan with me, Dwight, Jared, (who was taking the place of Simon and was my new favorite) and Negan’s new favorite, Anderson. Jared was a little overeager at times, especially to prove himself at his new spot at the ‘table,’ but Anderson just wanted to kill, and both Negan and I knew that was problem, but that was a problem for later, when the battle was over.

The table was a literal table, where we all gathered to discuss things, mostly plans of attack and things that were too serious to talk about while having drinks, which was Negan’s normal way of planning. Jared sat on my left, Negan on my right, and Dwight on Negan’s left with Anderson on the other side of the table. The table wasn’t very big, it was a square table in what was once a conference room, and we sat in chairs that weren’t as nice or as tall as Negan’s, but were better than the plastic seats in the canteen. Negan had a map on the table and we were all standing to look at the map as he lined things out, where some people would be, and what he wanted to do. He ignored what I had to say, as usual, because I was more concerned with keeping people alive than winning, and I was normally one to take a more cautious approach. But I guess I knew this would be bloody: the infinity wouldn’t go down without a fight, and they had to be very tough to have lived this long, and to have the numbers we thought they had.

Jared had little to say, and I think all he said the entire meeting was ‘hello’ to everyone, and then he just watched with wide eyes that I attributed to over-eager puppies, but Anderson had a lot to say. And that was what started our hatred of one another.

Anderson was proposing something that I wouldn’t allow, not while I was alive. He wanted to send in a large group of people, mostly the older residents, or those that weren’t very good at fighting, to run head first into the fray. And once he laid out what he wanted, I knew what he was doing. Those people would be slaughtered, and were meant to be nothing but a distraction. He thought their lives were worth less than the others, the ones that could fight or were still young, and my blood boiled. I looked over to Negan, who could see what this meant and I saw he was seriously considering it.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I shouted and launched myself at Negan. He caught me around the waist and shoved me back into my spot and put his cocky grin back in place, trying to placate me, but I wouldn’t be moved from my stance.

“Those people help keep this place running! They’ve fought for us, shed blood, lost family and friends for you and me and the sanctuary. You can’t write them off like fucking cattle!” I was shouting at Negan now but before he said anything, I heard a sneering laugh from Anderson and I slowly, and very ominously, turned to him.

“You got something to fucking say?” I snarled at him, my hand on my knife blade tucked into its sheath, which I had slowly undone as he had talked about the plan to sacrifice some 70 people from the Sanctuary, to send them to certain death just because he wanted to, and because he thought they were expendable.

Anderson’s face was a darker smirk than Negan’s which wasn’t something I ever thought I would see, and my face became darker, and the idea of murdering him in cold blood was slowly entering my mind.

“You’re a fucking pussy, you know that. This is war, bitch, and those people are gonna die soon anyway. They’re not worth the resources it takes to keep them alive, so I think I’m doing us all a favor.” Anderson had his arms crossed and a dark, sinister smile on his face, like he had everything figured out, like he had won this discussion. A few seconds ticked by in silence, less than 3. Then I lost it.

Before he was able to get his arms up to defend himself, I was across the table, ripping the map in pieces as I threw myself over the Formica tabletop, and had my hands at his throat, my entire bodyweight on him, wanting to choke the life out of his cocky and soulless body. His hands worked at my face, trying to punch and scratch and kick at me to get me off of him, so he could breathe, but all I saw was red, rage and that I was doing the world a favor by holding on, by depriving this asshole of necessary oxygen.

His face was turning blue, his lips were opening and closing in rapid fashion, trying to take in air, and I could feel his heart racing underneath my hands, underneath my closing, constricting fingers. I was vaguely aware of several people trying to get my attention, but all I could see was the steadily dying man under my bare hands, and I could see the fear and surprise on his face, that a woman, someone that looked as unassuming as me, was able to pin him down and was slowly, and literally, choking the life out of him. 

Someone strong, tall and covered in leather wrapped their arms around my waist and yanked me with all they had and my hands were forced from the bastard’s neck. He let out a choking, gasping sound and spit flung everywhere as he tried to catch his breath. Once he got his senses back, he stood up and pulled out his knife, looking to slice open my stomach and hold my intestines in his hands. But when he lunged at me, even as Negan was slowly pulling my screaming and vengeful self away from Anderson, I kicked at him, and the knife went flying into the corner of the room, the table was thrown on its side and Anderson clutched his broken hand, pressing it in pain against his chest.

Negan pulled me away as hard as he could, then threw me out of the conference room, yelling at me to take a fucking walk. Jared dutifully followed me, and he pressed a cloth to my cheek. I didn’t even realize I was bleeding. Negan looked beyond pissed at me, but I could see something behind his eyes, something other than anger and a promise that my actions in that conference room would have consequences.  
As soon as the door closed though, I heard Negan burst into laughter, and I heard Dwight chuckling along with him. Anderson was new to the Sanctuary, he had come from another community, hadn’t met me there, and hadn’t heard about me yet, about what I could do when I was pissed. I walked away from the room, my hands in my pockets, trying to clear my head and decided to head for the gardens, where I could get some fresh air and see some of the people working, which always calmed me down. The mundane, calming work was good to see and participate in, at least for me, because it offered security: the same thing every day, at the same time every day and the same people every day.

Anderson couldn’t believe a stupid little cunt that was a half-foot shorter than him had just embarrassed him in front of the leader of the most powerful community for hundreds of miles in any direction. His face was red, and what he wanted to do was murder her, that fucking self-righteous bitch, or better yet, teach her another kind of lesson. Anderson looked over at Negan, who was smirking and laughing still. 

“Well, you fucking met her on a very bad fucking day. You should fucking see her when she’s really fucking angry,” Negan was laughing to himself, and Dwight was smiling along. He didn’t like this Anderson guy, he was too quick to attack and seemed to not think about anything other than proving his way was the best, even it was the absolute worst for everyone else. Plus, the way he had spoken to Aura, so disrespectful, it was very misogynistic.

“That fucking cunt, you gonna fucking let her get away with that? She attacked me, she almost killed me! Why the fuck is she here anyway? Is it just because you knocked her up? Isn’t that what her purpose is?” Negan’s smile faded instantly and he stood toe to toe with Anderson, who wasn’t looking away or bowing like he should. Anderson had trodden into very dangerous waters with that last statement. 

“I’m only the messenger boss. People are thinking you keep her around because she’s some fine tail, and because she almost had your kid. Not much of a woman, to lose a baby,” Anderson stated, then was cut off, his feet dangling several inches off the ground, his body in a dent in the drywall of the room, with Negan’s gloved hand around his neck.

“If you every fucking talk about that again, I will rip out your throat and shove it up your ass. Then Lucille will finish it. Do you fucking understand me?” Negan’s voice was dead calm, dark, intense and deep, more murderous than Dwight had heard it in a long time.

Anderson choked out a yes and Negan let him fall from the dent in the wall and Anderson caught himself before he slumped into a pile on the ground. Anderson’s eyes were watering and he rubbed his injured and bruising neck before looking at Negan with a new determination.

“I apologize, Negan. But we still need to talk about her, and her unwillingness to sacrifice a few people for the betterment of everyone. She’s going to stop us from making hard decisions, we all know it, as long as she’s part of the planning process. You saw her reaction; you know my plan is the best option of attack; she’s gonna cost us the war.” Anderson was rubbing his neck and looked at Negan, and though he hated to admit it, Negan knew it was the best option, the best way to ensure the Infinity were completely taken over and eliminated. And it would take care of the overpopulation the sanctuary had now that winter was in full swing; the food was thinning out, but the number of people was slowly climbing, and the number of old and unskilled kept climbing faster than the number of skilled. 

Negan swung Lucille around a few times, thinking it over then turned to Anderson. “Start the preparations for your plan, but it doesn’t fucking leave this room, understand. Anyone finds out, I’m throwing you under the fucking bus, and by bus, I mean Aura’s wrath, and every fucking person here will rally behind her if the plan goes to shit. If it does fail, I’ll watch her kill you. Basic-fucking-ly, you live or die on this plan, Anderson. Do it right, you’ll have a permanent spot here.”

Anderson gulped hard but nodded, but before leaving the room after Dwight, he turned to Negan. “Are you going to punish her? Because I have something in mind for reparations, considering what she did to me,” Anderson had a dark gleam in his eye that Negan couldn’t place, but he nodded anyway. “She fucking knows better than to tantrum like a fucking toddler on crack. She’ll get a punishment. What the fuck did you have in mind?” Negan saw the dark gleam again, listened to Anderson’s suggestion, and couldn’t help the faint boner he was getting as he listened to it.

Anderson had played the punishment right to Negan’s wants, and when Negan had agreed, Anderson felt a kind of sick accomplishment, like he was better and smarter and more important than that fucking girl Aura. He wanted her on a silver platter, in her place, at his fucking feet. And tomorrow, she might not be at his feet, but she would be on her knees in front of him.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

The next day, I had calmed down considerably, and was thankfully very distracted as I worked to get people ready. Weapons needed to be cleaned, bullets made, people needed to learn to shoot, stab and fight, and the vehicles needed to be ready. There were dozens of things to do in preparation for the battle, and I was in the garage near the end of the day when someone said Negan needed to see me in his office.

I was still a little angry with Negan for wanting to go along with Anderson, well, very angry, and hadn’t spoken to him since the meeting yesterday. And I hadn’t seen Anderson since, though if I did, there was a chance I might actually kill him if he so much as looked at me wrong, or looked at anyone wrong for that matter. I hated the guy, and I had never hated anyone this strongly before, not even Negan, not even after what he did.

I knocked on the office door as just about everyone was heading to bed and Negan let me in. the office was darker than normal and by the smug look on his face, I knew this was about my outburst yesterday: he had decided to give me a punishment for it, and judging by the faint erection eh was sporting, it would be something he really wanted to do, but something I wouldn’t want to participate in.

Negan closed the door behind me, and I looked back at him through the corner of my eye when I heard him lock it. Someone else was in the room, I could feel their eyes on me, and I snarled, closing my fists when Anderson walked into the view of the single lamp in the room. He sat on the desk as Negan walked forward and grabbed my arm rather hard and was steering me to his bedroom, where some candles had been lit. memoires of the last time I had been in here, with lit candles in it, came back and I could feel what could only be a panic attack coming on.

“Don’t worry, you pretty little slut, you’ll like this,” Anderson said, grabbing my chin and I shoved him off, baring my teeth, letting him know next time he touched my face, I would, without hesitation, bite off his fingers. Or his dick, whichever happened to be closer.

Anderson smiled darkly and I took a deep breath; I would not let them break me, no matter what they did, no matter what they tried, I wouldn’t let them get to me. I was stronger than Negan, and certainly stronger than Anderson.

“So, your punishment is simple. You will get 50 hits on that fine ass of yours, and if you lose count, we start again. Then you will suck my dick, and swallow, and if you bite me, Negan will bash your limited brains in. Understand?” Anderson had a very smug look on his face and he was already undoing his belt buckle and I could see he was getting hard just from the look of indignation on my face.

“Are you fucking serious?” I asked with an unimpressed tone. This was the best he could come up with? Compared to what I’ve endured in the past, this was nothing. But Anderson was looking like he wanted to see me walk up and down streets naked with his dick up my ass. He thought this was humiliating for me. Not really, not after everything I’d been through. I put on an unamused, straight face and crossed my arms with a “let’s get this over with. I got things to do.” Anderson frowned.

I refused to look away from Anderson as I knelt on the carpet and took his dick into my mouth, and my face and the look in my eyes was clear: he would regret this. And as I looked at him, that same anger and rage and fire in my eyes, I felt him slowly become limp in my mouth. And I smirked at him. A few seconds later, he zipped himself up, frustrated but obviously unnerved, and left the office, slamming the door behind him.

“Performance issues are quite common, he shouldn’t feel too bad,” I smirked and looked at Negan out of the corner of my eye. He was holding back laughter, but once he was sure Anderson was gone, he erupted loudly, the corners of his eyes crinkling, his smile wide and for once in a long time, that glee entered his eyes, and the smile wasn’t foreboding, sarcastic or sadistic. It was real. But I was still pissed at Negan, whether or not I thought he had a nice smile. Daryl’s was a lot nicer. And hotter. And not something that gave me nightmares.

Negan decided against the 50 spanks on my ass, he was still too busy stifling his laughter, because we still had a lot of planning to do, and he had more important things to do with his time at the moment, more important than trying to teach me a lesson when the person I wronged was not even there. Negan was still chortling slightly, though hiding it from everyone but me and Dwight, we were the only ones that knew him well enough, and when Dwight looked at me and him confused, I whispered what happened to him. He burst into laughter, clutching his side, and was still laughing slightly 5 minutes later when we arrived at the now empty armory. Dwight was going to take stock of the bullets we had, because we had plenty of guns and weapons, but the ammo was limited.

I looked the sniper rifles over, and picked up my favorite, a powerful rifle with zooming scope, lighted sight and semi-auto option. It used the same bullets that a 30-06 used, which were much more common than military-issue rifles that used 5.56 ammo. I liked the 30-06 enough, but it had a single shot capability, and a big kick to it. My personal sniper rifle had less recoil, and was faster at shooting than having to eject the empty shell casing after every shot. It saved precious seconds, and when at war, those seconds mattered, and could determine whether some lived or died.

I bade goodnight to Dwight, because Negan had already left and was looking for Anderson, maybe to taunt him some more, I wouldn’t doubt it. But I had a feeling, that given the person Anderson seemed to be, that he would try to get revenge on me, mainly by killing me. Honestly, I wasn’t worried. The man was an overconfident asshole, too sure of himself simply because he had testicles, he thought having them made him king of the hill, over everyone and everything. The way he acted, I wouldn’t put it past him to wait for the battle to start, then kill Negan, to take the leadership role. And given his attitude towards women, he would be worse than Negan. Fuck, that’s not something I thought I would ever come across. So given the opportunity, when the war started, I didn’t have much choice in the matter. If Anderson looked at anyone wrong, from the Sanctuary or not, I would put a bullet in his head.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A few days later, we were ready. The community was geared up, weapons at the ready and in all the vehicles we could spare. Less than 50 remained behind at the sanctuary, and anyone that could reliably hold a weapon, or wouldn’t panic at the first sight or sound of battle, was packed tight into the many vehicles and we headed for the Hilltop.

The ride was filled with nervous energy, the younger members looking to prove themselves, and filled with the faint naïve feelings of youth of what war really was, and what was about to happen. Those that were older, or had been through hell since the turn, were subdued, but determined. They looked from one another, to the floor of the vehicles, then to me, looking to absorb some of the confidence I normally poured from myself. Not was no different. We had the numbers, the weapons, and the need to get this done, to finish this once and for all. And we had the conviction; this was all about vengeance, about safety, about being able to return to the faint but steady normal we had worked so hard to obtain. This was about being able to feel safer inside the walls if the sanctuary again.

**(“This is not going to be easy, and it will be bloody. But we have something they don’t. Not just numbers, weapons or other communities, we have conviction. We have the need to feel safe again, to be certain that we are the best of the best, that we are the true power of all the communities. We owe it, not only to ourselves and the other communities, but those we lost, to fight with all our hearts, to pour our minds, bodies and souls into this fight. Today, we end this threat, once and for all!” I stood at the platform at the normal meeting place and addressed the people in front of me, all 400 of them, most of them with some kind of makeshift armor on, weapons in hand or on their belts, and stern, nervous or anxious twitches on their faces. But I could see fire in their eyes, all of them. They wanted to win, they wanted this to be over. Because we were fighting for our lives, our home, our right to be the top again, to be unchallenged, and to be safe inside our walls once more.

Negan had stood beside me, stoic, thick football armor covering most of his body but still under his leather jacket and red scarf, Lucille covered in new wire, but it was razor wire instead of barbed wire, a pistol on his hip and bowie knife on his other side. Dwight also wore armor, a long spear made of wood with a metal tip from the forge here in the sanctuary, and some poison was on the end of it, my invention.

I had told Negan we could greatly increase our chances of success if we poisoned the tips of our weapons, as long as everyone was careful, or maybe just poison some of the weapons. I had laced the tips of all of my arrows with rhubarb leaf juice and hemlock distillation, both of them very toxic. That was one reason everyone was wearing long sleeves and gloves, though not just because it was very cold today. It was because the weapons were poison-tipped. And I had a bottle in my pocket for other arrows and ranged weapons or knives from other communities when we met up.)**

When the Hilltop came into view, I could see over a dozen vehicles already at the base of the hill. The thick snow and biting, fierce wind prevented the vehicles from climbing the hill without posing a risk to everyone in it or behind it. Last thing we needed was a car crash.

Negan entered the community first and was met with what had to be close to 300 other people in it, people from all the other communities we had talked with. I waved the leaders over: Rick, Ezekiel, Daryl, and Jesus made their way over to me, Negan and Dwight, and they could see the sheer number of people we had brought with us. Everyone combined, our ranks were now at 600. No way in hell the Infinity could fight off a massive army that size. 

“First things first, I brought some poison to tip your weapons if you want. My arrows are poisoned, and most of our weapons are, so be careful, and pass that along. We don’t need friendly fire before the battle even starts. Anyone wants to get it, tell them to find me in the mansion. Negan will give you directions of what we plan to do once at the Infinity compound.” I looked from one leader to another and a few runners took off to spread the word. It was dangerous, poisoning the weapons, someone could be killed, and made to look like an accident. Some people from the other communities were looking like they might take the opportunity, so I pulled the leaders aside as Negan and Dwight set up a kind of command post and laid out a map.

“I can see some of your people are thinking assassination. If they try, there will be no end to Negan’s fury. He’ll kill everyone that came with that community, and some from other communities, just to prove his point. And if he does die, there’s an even worse asshole that would take his place. No, not me, don’t look at me like that, Jesus,” I snarled at him. “Keep your people in line, or they’ll get everyone else killed.” I added a final note then held up the bottle of poison. “Whoever wants some, follow me. Daryl?” I asked him and he nodded with a faint grunt.

In the mansion, a long line had begun to poison their weapons, and I carefully spread the poison on the blades, and told everyone to wear gloves, just to be safe. Almost everyone was already wearing gloves, the wind had to be at 20below today, and was not an ideal battle setup, but one thing Negan ad I had agreed on was we couldn’t wait much longer. The Infinity might pick up and move, and though no longer our problem, it would eat at everyone that we didn’t get to finish this. Mostly me, because it meant more people were at risk, and I hadn’t done everything in my power to stop it.

It was getting close to noon by the time everyone was briefed, told what to do and had piled back into the vehicles. Everyone had packed a lot of things, in case this ended up taking longer than a few hours, which I had a feeling it would. Negan would want to make sure every single one of those Infinity bastards were dead. And so did I.

The drive to the compound was nerve-wracking, quiet and filled with tension so thick I thought it should be a visible fog. In the front were the main attack force, those with melee weapons, spears and charging weapons, along with an old truck with a large battering ram welded onto the front of it to push down the gate or whatever obstacle was in the way. The middle was composed of those with guns, or runners with the extra ammo we had with us and those that would take the injured off the field and to the back of the fleet. I was here, and would coordinate the long range fighting, the snipers, and the medical personnel. Between the 4 communities, there were about a dozen medics, though Doc Carson had been forbidden from coming. We didn’t need to lose our only real doctor. 

Anderson was in the front with Dwight, which made me nervous, but he was ambitious and blood-thirsty, making him on hell of a battering ram and he was trying to psyche everyone else up with his manic and rather unnerving need to fight. It was rubbing off on mostly the younger members, but Negan and I knew he was also trying to get people on his side, recruiting. But Negan wasn’t nearly as worried about it as he should be, not nearly as concerned about it as I was.

A few hours of driving through rough backwoods and some people becoming sick with nerves, or carsickness, later, we were final at the edge of the border of the compound where the infinity lived. 

And judging by the sudden gunfire, shouting and arrows coming our way, they knew we were here.

The final battle against the Infinity had begun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The long awaited battle has finally started, and the next chapter is almost done already. Keep an eye out for it. Also, I was trying hard to laugh as I wrote about Aura's "punishment." Imagining it in my head was great. Hope I wasn't the only one that found it somewhat humorous. Luv4uall!!


	15. One Stops, Another Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final battle with the Infinity starts, and a terrible choice by Negan pushes Aura too far.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a long chapter, I couldn't find a good place to break it up. Graphic violence, disturbing war and dead scenes, and attempted non-con. You've been warned.

I stopped my vehicle at the back of the convoy and heard the sounds of the fighting already starting before I even got on top of my car to get a good shoot with my rifle. I had limited ammo, so I had to make them count, though my aim was so good I rarely missed anyway. My goal was to take out those in the towers, ones with the most firepower, or those in charge. Lying on the cold top of the icy car, a blanket under me to stop me from freezing and clenching up, I looked from one adversary to another through the scope of my rifle, looking for the best ones to take out with the limited ammo I had. 

My first target was high in a tower and was doing almost the exact same thing I was doing: sniping. Right as he looked over to me, I pulled my trigger and through my scope could see his head explode around him with the force of the bullet. His rifle dropped from the tower and in the distance I heard a metallic crashing sound, and someone on the walkie said the gate had been crashed down and the main masses were pouring in. Rick and Ezekiel were leading the outer edges, to box the infinity in, so none of them could get away. Rick had never come across the Infinity before, and I told him outright eh was lucky. They were more ruthless than Negan, ad had told him what I’d seen them do. Rick wasn’t one to trust, and certainly not a Savior, but he believed me when I told him. Daryl trusted me, so Rick trusted me enough to believe me.

I lay on the roof of the car, sniping one Infinity member after another, though it soon became impossible once the flames started.

Inside the community, the Infinity were putting up a well-organized fight, but they hadn’t prepared for so many people, and for the communities that up until this morning had hated the Sanctuary, to work together in any way. It caught the leaders off guard, even more so when the leaders started to die, one by one, and so did their people, and some of them only had small cuts, barely breaking the skin. The leaders could only conclude the weapons were tainted or poisoned somehow, and they had an idea who had done it. 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Aura was a name they had learned while torturing some people form several different communities, and her name came up almost as much as Negan’s. From what the Infinity had gathered, she was in charge of medical in the Sanctuary and the majority of people respected her more than they feared Negan; her specialty was herbal and alternative medicine, making her most likely person to have made the poison that was now talking out the Infinity one by one. A large fire started in meat a drying hut and someone came out of, looking disgusted and vomited, and several others came over to make they were alight. A thrown Molotov set all of them on fire and the screaming started, their skin burning and stinking up the air around them, until someone else, a rugged looking man with crossbow over his back, had the sense to throw them down into a snowbank. 

Daryl could smell something coming from the hut, something he had smelt before: those people were cannibals, and that hut had what was left their victims in it. Daryl flung his crossbow off his back when someone came up behind him, until someone from the Sanctuary, judging by their armor and clothing, swung their club over the enemy head with a loud and unpleasant thunk. The enemy fell to the ground, head splayed open, a lot like what Sasha looked like when Negan made his first appearance; the Sanctuary member hit the Infinity member of the head again, to make sure they stayed dead, then followed their group back into the main building.

And that’s when the screaming started.

Daryl stood outside the main building, where the rest of the Infinity were being killed mercilessly, and though it set fits of twists in his stomach, he knew it was necessary. That didn’t mean he needed to like it.  
Rick made an appearance a few minutes later, coming from the outer rings of the fight, blood covering most of his shirt and his knife, his colt python out in his hand. They nodded to one another and both could hear the deathly screams of the Infinity in the main building, which looked like it had once been a nice house, but was rotting away and filthy, smelling like cooking human flesh, blood, and fecal matter. The perimeter was sound and sure, Negan was leading the slaughter inside the main building, and the injured were now being taken to the back of the convoy. Daryl thought about Aura, how she was about to become a combat medic on a very gruesome battlefield, and his heart was aching to see her, to hold her. 

Rick put a comforting hand on the back of Daryl’s neck and they walked the perimeter together, looking for injured, those that might be trying to escape. Rick was called away and Daryl kept walking, until he heard a faint shriek and ran to see what the issue was. A sneering man, from the sanctuary judging by his armor, had pinned down someone from the Hilltop and was trying to pull her into the woods, and was in the process of taking off her pants.

“You fucker!” Daryl shouted to him and ran at him, forgetting his crossbow in his anger and tackling the man football style. The man huffed as he was thrown into a tree trunk, but quickly regained his footing, and snarled at Daryl, pulling out his knife, which was one of the few in the battle that wasn’t tipped with a thick poisonous liquid. Daryl raised his fist and his own knife, which was tipped, instincts kicking in, but a shot rang out and Daryl fell over, grabbing his side in pain. 

The man had shot him, pulling out his gun in a very underhanded move. And now the man stood over Daryl, a dark smirk on his face, as he looked at his knife, then at the bleeding and moaning Daryl, who was clutching his bleeding side. The man knelt beside Daryl, who was seeing black creeping into the edges of his vision, despite trying his best to stay awake, thinking about Rick, li’l asskicker, Carl, and Aura, all people that needed him, and people that he loved. He needed to live for them. He needed to tell Aura so many things still, things he had been too afraid to tell her. But it wasn’t in the cards as the man leered over him, his knife in his hand, then slowly turned it over so the sharp point was facing down, straight towards Daryl’s chest.

Daryl couldn’t move, he was too weak, too tired, his body was telling him to sleep, to close his eyes, and he was having trouble keeping them open, but he could see that man still, standing over him, and with a long, purposeful upswing, the man raised his knife into the air.

Daryl’s eyes shut for a moment, blinking, waiting. It seemed to last forever, and there was no noise, only the sound his own heartbeat and the dark chuckling of the man standing over him. In the distance, he thought he heard a familiar and sharp twang, a hard and sharp collision, then a faint gasp, then nothing. A faint gurgling noise penetrated the intense silence of his bloodloss-stupor and he had the strength to open his eyes just as something warm dripped onto his face.

The man stood over him, his eyes wide, fearful, as he looked down at his neck, where a single crossbow bolt penetrated his neck, pouring blood from it onto Daryl. A faint clicking sound echoed in Daryl’s mind, one he’s heard many times before, and a feminine exertion grunt, then another sharp and familiar twang, and a sharp and hard collision, and another crossbow bolt stuck out from the mans’ chest, right through his heart.

The man fell to the side, dropping the knife onto Daryl harmlessly, and Daryl could hear someone running to him, someone coming to his aid, and he knew those confident, quiet, sure steps anywhere.

“Aura…”

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I put the crossbow down next to Daryl as I looked him over. I’d seen Anderson heading of the back of the compound and had a sneaking suspicion he was going to try something I wouldn’t like. And I was right; something about the way he was looking around when he disappeared from the main group conveyed dark and sinister intentions. When I heard what sounded like a woman calling for help, I knew it was him that was doing it, and was determined to end this. But when he threatened Daryl, lording over him, a knife in his hands and terrible, foreboding smile on his face, more frightening than Negan’s, I didn’t bother to think. 

I picked up Daryl’s discarded crossbow, fired into his neck, then placed my foot into the loading foothold and loaded another one, shooting him in the heart.

Seeing Anderson fall, I walked over to Daryl and him, and was amazed when he wasn’t actually dead. I pulled the bolts from his body, and he would be dead soon, but I pulled my knife from my holster, and slid it hard across his throat, finishing the job.

Daryl and I watched as the man struggled for a second to breathe, clutching at his neck, trying to stop the flood of hot, wet, sticky blood from his opened neck; then he stopped moving, his eyes went dead and Daryl shoved his own knife into Anderson’s head.

I helped Daryl up, nice and slow, my hand on his chest, wanting to feel his warmth, his heart beat. I missed him so much, all the time I missed him and wanted to see him; I put my other hand under his arm and let him lean on me so we could walk together, and I knew how it would look, but I was tired of hiding it from people. In fact, everyone knew I had been seeing someone outside of the Sanctuary, but few people knew who it really was.

It had to be perfect timing that Rick showed up before anyone saw me and Daryl together, and he quickly took my spot at his side. The sun was setting and the last of the Infinity were being killed, mostly by Negan and a few people from the Sanctuary; I left him to it, then passed the front of the gate and stopped dead in my tracks.

What looked like everyone over the age of 45 from the sanctuary, and a lot of people that had trouble gaining points, or weren’t skilled workers, lay dead in a massive pile, a tangle of mutilated limbs, blood, crying loved ones and the occasional moan as one of the dead didn’t stay dead. That fucking son of a bitch: Negan had gone through with Anderson’s plan, to use the ‘less important’ sanctuary members as a shield, as fodder.

My hands shook, tears clouded my eyes and I looked up when I heard the unmistakable sound of Negan’s taunting laugh as he lorded over another person, about to kill them. I walked, head high and steps sure, fists clenched, and entered the main building in the Infinity compound. The building was once a nice, fancy house but no one had bothered to maintain it or keep it clean, even though the Infinity had lived in it for some time. The windows were shattered, the wooden floors caked in blood in all stages of drying, and the entire house reeked of feces, urine, blood and rotting flesh. The old wooden floors creaked under my fast steps as I got behind Negan and he turned to see me, my face set in stone, red, fury and rage and unbridled fire in my green eyes.

“What the fuck’s got you all…” Negan was cut off as my fist collided with his jaw with all the strength I had and he fell back with a grunt and the crowd gasped. I could feel my knuckles breaking from the force of the punch and I saw a bruise starting to form under the freshly growing salt and pepper beard.

“You spineless son of a bitch! You led them all to die. Just because you thought less of them, doesn’t make their lives worth any less than yours. They were better than you, because, unlike you, they cared about someone other than themselves. They came here to fight for you, and for their family and friends. And you led them to fucking slaughter!” Every sentence I spoke was getting louder and louder, and Negan was slowly being forced against the wall with the force of my punches, one after another hitting his face, neck, arms, anything what wasn’t covered by his armor. Lucille had fallen to the ground, forgotten in his panic, and he looked naked and incomplete without it.

The group, even some of the Infinity, were watching the fight unfold. This was the final straw for me, after everything Negan had done, not just to me and those that matter to me, but to other communities, to everyone he has ever come into contact with, everyone he has ever threatened, scared or taken from. He led some 50 of his followers to his death, and they had trusted him to do the right thing, and this was what he did to them.

“You crazy fucking bitch, what the fuck?!” Negan was shouting as he tried to push me away, but all it did was give me more open flesh to punch on his face and neck. “Are you fucking kidding me? You agreed to Anderson’s plan to lead those you thought were less important to their deaths! They followed you, they fought and died for you, and you do this?!” I landed a punch on his throat and his voice went from confident and booming to raspy, gasping and faint.

He landed a punch of his own, and it sent me reeling to the ground and heard Daryl snarling in the background, Rick holding his best friend back as Negan and I continued to fight, punching one another, shouting, threatening. He said he would bash my brains in when this was over. I said I would slit his throat before he got his hands around her.

The nervous and vengeful tension was thick in the air and everyone was staring, wondering who would win this fight. Most people put their bets on me in their minds, knowing that I was unstoppable and intense and a force of nature when I was angered. Negan stared and me and I could see things slowly working in his mind, wondering what to do. I was essentially challenging him right now, calling him out, challenging his power and influence over me, and he didn’t like it at all. But he also knew that if he tried to kill me, with so many people watching from the Sanctuary, they would kill him.

Negan settled for snarling before hitching that smug look on his face and looked me over, then looked over my shoulder to the many dead people behind me, the 50+ people he had led to their deaths.

“They were the front-lines, we all knew they had more risk in that position. Don’t try to fucking pin this on me, Aura. This is fucking war, not a fucking tea party,” Negan said loud enough for everyone to hear and looked from one person to another, then went about his business of the moment, which was making sure the rest of the Infinity were dead.

When the last Infinity member was dead, their skull and brains nothing but an indistinguishable pile of mush on the frozen ground, Negan walked over to where some people had found most of the supplies, and I saw the seats from the vehicles the Infinity had stolen from us over a month ago. Why the hell did they even steal car seats anyway? They weren’t that comfy and they were heavy.

Negan looked the supplies over and started to direct some of his runners to begin loading up the vehicles with the stuff, and Rick was over in a second, pointing out that everyone got a portion, not just Negan. Negan leered over Rick, and said, “yeah, you get some of this shit now, but when I come collecting, I’m taking most of this shit with me then. I’m just saving me a trip,” he said and I saw Rick’s hands clench and unclench, as if trying very hard to now grab his gun and shoot Negan in the head. I walked over to Negan and tried to pull him aside and get him to leave some things, but he was taking it all, a dark, sinister smile on his face, and he looked over at the other leaders and other people, with a face that clearly said, “Yeah, what are you pussies gonna do about it?”

Rick walked away after several long moments, though his face was far from defeated; he looked even more determined. I looked from one leader to another, trying to convey that I was sorry, until I saw the dead people, my dead people, people that I knew, that had followed Negan into battle, trusting him, and had been nothing but fodder for his own ends. He never cared about those people, they were expendable in his eyes: the old, the unskilled, the injured, the sick, the people that had trouble making ends meet in the skewed and biased system that he created. 

I looked at Negan’s back as he watched everyone loading up everything he was taking, which was every crumb, every box, every piece of wiring in the place. Then when he was done, gas flowed onto the floors of some of the buildings and he lit the place up. Black smoke quickly obscured the skies and a sickening scent coated everything and everyone, and one by one, the communities and their people left the area, taking their vehicles to their communities, heading home to lick their wounds and tally their losses.

I watched Negan almost the entire time he was loading, watching everyone with that superior air, that smug and dark smirk on his face and the last bit of patience I had for him, for the people that really supported him, and for his rule over the Sanctuary and all the people in this area, was gone.

Yes, the battle with the Infinity was finally over.

But the war with Negan was about to begin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is one more war that this story needs to cover, and it will be getting into spoiler territory, since the TV show hasn't gotten as far as I will be in the next few chapters. I won't spoil much, but I will let you all know what chapter might have a spoiler in it, just so you know. But most details, I'll make up on my own. See you all in the next war. Luv4uall!! PS: yep, Aura saved Daryl's life. :D


	16. A Hidden Conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short but heavy conversation starts the final war.

Back at the sanctuary, things were unloaded and the sun was already heading down past the treeline casting long, foreboding shadows all over the world. The same dark mood hung over Negan and me. Everyone could tell that I was very angry with him, filled with rage and righteous fury, and he was just his normal cocky and narcissistic self; my mind kept going to all those dead people, led to their deaths by Negan, their leader, and now their murderer.

Of all the horrible things Negan has done, so many things, this was one of the worst. The count was 72 people, 72 loved ones and members of the Sanctuary had been killed, and most of them had been the front guard, those Negan had thought were expendable, worthless, and not needed. But as their loved ones came forward, wanting to know what happened, and where their loved ones were, I knew Negan was wrong. Those people had others that loved them, family and friends, people that needed their support; and Negan had treated them worse than fodder, he had sent them on a suicide mission, knowing it was a suicide mission, not caring if they lived or died, probably hoping they died to save on the resources they would otherwise consume.

Rage and sorrow filled my chest and belly and I excused myself, heading for my room. I locked myself in and thought long and hard, well after everyone else had already gone to bed, after everyone else had already stopped crying and were now mourning silently in their rooms, getting things ready for the many funerals we would have tomorrow. And when the sun faintly came up and I was still awake thinking and planning, I came to several conclusions.

Conclusion 1: Negan was a total and complete asshole. But even he knew that.

Conclusion 2: Negan could not remain as a leader for much longer, not with his methods of sacrificing the many so spare himself, his brutality, and just how instable he’s been the last few months.

Conclusion 3: I could not be the only one to overthrow him.

The Sanctuary was a place people lived and records were made, and I knew there were people writing about this battle now, recording it for future generations, when everyone alive was dead and gone. And a battle to overthrow Negan would be told for generations, just like how, before TV, stories about great battles were passed down. If I did it, if I brought down Negan, history would see it as someone just wanting the power. No, I couldn’t be the only one to do it. The people that suffered under Negan’s tyrannical rule would have to be the ones to ultimately do it. But there was nothing that said I couldn’t push it.

As I looked out over the slowly rising sun, though well before anyone else was awake, I could see what looked like something big moving in the brush not far from the compound, and it looked like a walker. I sighed, knowing the guards were very sleepy and inattentive this time of day, shortly before changing the guards, and headed down the steps to take care of it myself.

The guards were yawning loudly and said they hadn’t seen anything, and I nodded to them, but they let me out anyway. As my mind processed what I had seen, I realized it wasn’t a walker, but someone I knew, someone that had the ability to follow us, even though we covered our tire tracks with pine branches dragging along the back of the trucks. I heard them sneaking very quietly through the brush and frozen ground, it was hard to hide in this weather, but the sun was quickly being covered with thick clouds and snow was threatening. I heard what sounded like a faint, light, nimble footstep and headed for it. There was no way that was a walker; it was too quiet.

A few minutes later, I heard the faint running stop, and I slid behind a tree. Whoever it was now knew that I was following them. I hid behind the tree for several long, cold moments, the wind picking up and small snowflakes starting to fall. A very faint, almost indistinguishable, noise came from the other side of my tree and I spun around it fast, knife out and ready to fight.

Long, dark blonde hair and thick, scruffy beard filled my vision as strong, skilled hands grabbed my wrists and tried to remove the knife from them, but I fought loose, and spun a kick into the arm of my attacker. 

A loud curse, and quick rebuttal, told me it was who I thought it was: Jesus.

We both stood up at the same time and stared at one another: he knew he was caught trying to follow us, and he now knew where the Sanctuary was. I stared at him, wondering what to do and wondering what I should do. If he got back to his people, they would surely all learn where we were and what to expect when they attacked. A lot of my people could die.

I crossed my arms and looked at Jesus and he looked at me. He didn’t want to have to kill me, but the look on his face told me that he would if he had to. I sighed and leaned back against a tree and ran fingers through my hair, exhausted, sore and not wanting to do this now, but that option had already been taken from me. Plus, the sooner this was started, the better.

“Who do you plan on telling?” I asked Jesus and he studied my face before he finally said, “Rick and Ezekiel.” I nodded and looked at the ground, thinking, and held up my hand when Jesus looked ready to take off.

“I hate Negan as much as you do, probably more. But my people are in the crosshairs and he’ll kill every single one of this if it means staying alive. We do this, we gotta be smart,” I said to him and I saw his eyes latch onto my when I said ‘we.’

"We?” Jesus asked and I nodded to him. “The only threat left to the sanctuary, to my people, to everyone I care about, is Negan himself. And after what he did today…” I paused as I needed to collect myself. I rubbed my head again, ran my fingers through my hair and looked once more at Jesus, who was listening intently.

“I don’t want this to fall into all-out war, Jesus, I want to avoid more bloodshed, but if you need to attack, do it to the building. I can get Negan riled enough to mount a fight, and spring my own trap. The people will follow me if it comes down to it, they will want to avoid all-out war with the other communities, especially if it means getting rid of Negan. But we need to be careful and smart about this. You trust no one, not even the people in the community you’re closest to; the fear of Negan will drive some to very stupid and regrettable things,” I paused, thinking about some things I had experienced in the past involving that very same scenario and emotion. I shook it from my head and looked once more at Jesus, who was getting ready to leave, afraid we’d be discovered.

“In 7 days, I’ll head for the Kingdom, pretending to be on a hunting trip. No one’ll be following me, make sure no one is following you. And we’ll start planning there.”

Jesus nodded when I finished talking and he left in a hurry, wanting to be away from the sanctuary as fast as he could, so the snow would cover his tracks. I punctured my thumb slightly and wetted an arrow with the blood. If I was going to pretend I had found and killed a walker, I needed to look like I had.

The guard had changed when I got back to the wall, and they looked at me odd, but I just waved the blood-covered arrow and made a show of wiping it off on some snow at my feet before heading inside the slightly open gate.

My insides were knots, and I was a tad worried; actually, I was very worried. I was about to attempt treason against Negan, and if he ever found out, if anyone told him by accident or on purpose, I would be killed, very publicly, and in a very painful, drawn out way. But he’d torture me for weeks on end before killing me, letting me feel the pain, make me beg for death and not give it to me. That was the kind of man, the kind of monster, Negan was.

The more I thought about it, about him, the more I knew it was doing the right thing. It wasn’t hard to consider the idea that Negan would probably not live through this, his life was one that I didn’t care to save; it wasn’t even hard to consider that I was betraying him. What was hard was the idea that this might become bloody, that people might rally behind Negan if their home was attacked, or anyone else from the   
Sanctuary was injured or killed. If we were going to do this, we needed to do this the smart, careful way, and we needed to do this together.

Yes: Rick, Ezekiel, Jesus and I. We needed to do this together, and we couldn’t do it without everyone’s involvement. And if it went wrong, we would all pay, in the most brutal and horrible ways.

But as I worked my way to my room, to finally get some sleep now that I had made up my mind and things were finally set in motion, I knew this was the only way, the best way. The people, all the people, from many different communities, needed to rebel and take down Negan, not me, or it wouldn’t be right, not in my eyes. It would just be one leader fighting another for power.

I collapsed onto my bed, looking up at the ceiling, wondering what would happen next, what would be done, what I needed to do. But that would be for another day as my eyes felt heavy and were forcing themselves closed.

Before falling asleep, I could only think about one thing, and what it would mean for me and everyone else that lived under Negan’s tyrannical rule.

‘The revolution has begun.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's a hokey kind of thing for Aura to think, but it's true. Now comes the secretive planning of the plans. (squeals with dark delight)  
> Luv4uall!


	17. The Planning Starts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aura heads to the Kingdom to start planning to overthrown Negan, and she finds out she's not the only Savior there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter might be spoiler material for the TV show, I'm not sure. I'm kind of going off the graphic novels at this point, so I don't know how true the show is to the books. Thought I'd put that out there.

That entire week I was paranoid that someone had heard the conversation and would tell Negan at any moment, but he was just as narcissistic and unbearable as ever, and I held the same coldness and anger towards him. The dead were mourned, the haul was catalogued and added to the cache, and things were hardly changed from how they were before the battle.

The exception was the sudden emptiness in the canteen. With the loss of 72, our numbers were much lower than they were had been in a long time, not since I first joined over a year ago. I had known almost every single one of the people lost. Essentially, the Infinity had taken 83 people from our ranks, but Negan had helped increase that number significantly; whenever I looked at his face, I could tell he knew exactly what he did, and what really pissed me off was that he didn’t give a flying fuck. Those people were expendable anyways, he had told me a few days after the final battle, and we had gotten into another fight, this one lasting longer than the one out in the open, and we both landed some good hits, though I landed many more than he did. He hated that I was a better fighter than he was, and he hated even more that there wasn’t much he could do anymore and not risk a full uprising from the people if he ever did something to me. Because if anything happened to me, the people would blame Negan.

7 days after running into Jesus in the woods around the Sanctuary, I gathered up everything I would normally take for a hunt and headed off, taking a scooter to get farther away and to make sure no one was following me. I normally hunted alone, and it wasn’t odd for me to go hunting with the scooter anyway, but I still needed to be careful. About a mile from the kingdom, I pulled over to the side of the road, pushed the scooter down the slope of the bank into the snow at the bottom, so no one would want to steal it, and walked the rest of the way to the Kingdom.

The snow had covered most of the tracks from the horses the knights used, but it looked like someone had just gone into the gates recently. Instead of going through the front door, I slid over the wall, slunk with some grace, though a little slipping, to the ground and worked my way through the community, keeping quiet and listening. When I got near the throne room, I could hear several male voices talking, and it sounded like they were arguing, then I heard Shiva roar.

I got closer to the throne room and got the door open ever so slightly to give me an almost full view; Rick and Ezekiel were facing one another, Shiva was on all 4’s looking at Rick with her detestable face, the same face she has when someone was being violent. Ezekiel was stroking her to calm her down, and someone else appeared. Daryl made his presence known as he pulled himself from the wall of the throne room ad walked over to Rick’s side, unaware that I was watching him. And his ass too. Such a cute ass.

A familiar and annoying voice hit my ears and I looked away from the eye candy to see another male enter the throne room, sporting a chunk of ice on his lower jaw and glaring at Rick. My mouth fell open slightly when I saw him, talking to Rick about overthrowing Negan, about what he could do, about wanting the nightmare to be over.

Dwight?

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Dwight walked back into the throne room, some cold ice chunk on his jaw and it felt better, but that didn’t stop the glowering gaze he shot at Rick for punching him in the first place. Rick was a paranoid man, and it would take a lot for Dwight to gain his trust. He needed to persuade the leader of Alexandria, and the leaders from the other places too, if he was going to get rid of Negan and free himself and the sanctuary from Negan’s hold. But this would be hard on them all, and rather bloody, because the people wouldn’t follow him, not even his ex-wife really liked him anymore, and he had lost Aura when he fired that shot in the woods, leaving her, Michelle and Ryan for dead. 

“Why the fuck should we believe you?” Rick snarled at Dwight and Dwight looked at him, and for the first time in a long time, he wasn’t angry: he was desperate.

“You deal with Negan once every week. I deal with him every goddamn day. He’s let people starve to death on his watch, he doesn’t give a shit. He enjoyed doing this to me; it was all over his face. He’s broken his own rules over and over again, just to suit his needs. The people that live with him as their constant ruler are trapped in a nightmare, including me. And don’t even get me started on what he’s done to Aura, even after he told me he loved her. This needs to end, and it needs to end soon.” Dwight was breathless as he spoke to the leaders gathered around him and he had put all his thought and emotions into this, into his face and eyes, hoping that would be enough to get rick to trust him.

There was some silence in the room, and it was heavy with thought, until it was broken up with a loud, echoing clap. Someone at the doors of the throne room was clapping slowly, almost mockingly, and everyone turned around, worried Negan would be standing there.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

I stood listening to Dwight, and when he was done, I slowly clapped. He was right, but that didn’t mean I liked him, or what he said. He was willing to make this blood, and I wouldn’t let that happen, I couldn’t.   
There was a much smarter way to do it.

Everyone turned to look at me, and the horror on their faces said they thought I was Negan for a moment, then they lowered their weapons as I stepped into the throne room, glaring at Dwight, who was now looking at the ground, aware he had pissed me off. It was radiating off me in waves.

“You were willing to let this go into another bloody war, Dwight? Haven’t we lost enough people?” I whispered to him in a very dangerous voice, but loud enough for Rick and Daryl to hear. He moved away from the anger I was putting off and I glared at him another few seconds before turning back to the other leaders and sighed.

“While his methods are off, he’s right about one thing: this needs to end, and soon,” I said, crossing my arms and going over to pet Shiva, who was almost instantly rumbling in pure happiness the moment my hand touched her fur.

“And how do ya plan on makin’ this work?” Rick asked and I looked form him to Daryl, who gave me a small acknowledging nodded, and a faint smirk. My insides fluttered when I saw that, then I looked back at Rick.

“You know where the Sanctuary is. Bring some people with you, and attack the building, not the people. Negan will feel the need to rally everyone behind him, to start a war,” I said calmly and Rick looked at me, angry.

“How the hell does that help?” he said and I raised a hand to quiet him. Daryl was trying hard not to grin at how indignant Rick looked when I did that.

“When Negan leads the people to fight a war I know they don’t really want, I will do what they’ve wanted me to do for months now. I’ll deviate from Negan, stand up to him and split ties. The people will have to choose between me or Negan. And I know almost all of them will choose me.” I was talking like I was commenting on the weather, and I was oddly calm, but this was something I had a week to think about, something that I had dreamed about for months, almost a year, now.

“And how do you know the people will follow you, and not Negan? Their terrified of him,” Ezekiel finally spoke, and he had lost that medieval king thing in his nervousness.

“Because the people respect Aura more than they fear Negan,” Dwight finally spoke up. 

I looked from one leader to another, wondering if they would challenge this, question Dwight or me, but Rick just looked at Daryl, who was nodding and looking both determined, nervous and amped up all at the same time. Finally, after what felt like an eternity but was only a few minutes, Rick nodded and so did Ezekiel. Jesus looked at me and nodded his approval, and I knew that all the leaders in this room were in.

I looked to Rick and finally said, “Don’t attack too soon, give it a month or so. The people are very tense and twitchy from the battle with the Infinity, but once they calm down, they’ll be a lot less ready to fight again. And if you do end up hurting someone from the sanctuary, this will all be in vain. They’ll want revenge. I’m sure you can figure something else out. When you make your move, I’ll make mine,” I finally said to Rick before picking up my bow ad arrows and heading for the door.

Daryl watched me go, and I looked back at him for a second, flashing him a smile and I saw him blush ever so faintly. Dammit, he was so hot.

Back in the woods, far from the Kingdom, I hunted in the woods and got some squirrels to bring back with me; if I came back empty-handed, Negan would get suspicious. And that would be everything until Rick and the other leaders made their move: to not make Negan suspicious. Neither could Dwight. Or we would never be free of Negan, because he would kill us in public, to make an example out of us, and kill Rick, probably Daryl too, Jesus, and Ezekiel and probably some others just to prove his point some more. And I knew he would save me for last, and would take me to see everyone he killed, to make me suffer.

So Negan could never know, until it was already too late for him.

It was after dark when I arrived back at the sanctuary, and I was exhausted, cold, wet and ready for a very long and deep sleep. I dropped the squirrels off at the skinning tables, where someone would clean them in the morning, and headed to the showers to clean up and wash the blood of me. I slumped up to my room, unlocked the door and walked inside.

Negan was sitting on my bed, waiting for me. He had Lucille tight in his hands, rubbing her lower handle gently, an intense and threatening look in his eyes and wide, Cheshire grin on his face.

“Hello, Aura. Where the fuck’ve you been?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh-oh. Does Negan know? Did Dwight rat Aura out to give himself more power? Luv4uall!


	18. Remembering Her Rise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A look back on Aura's rise to Savior in the Sanctuary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of a filler chapter, but with some important background info.

I calmed myself internally and raised my eyebrow at Negan, crossing my arms and saying coldly, “I was hunting.” He looked at me like he knew something was up, but if that was the case, he would be throwing it in my face and I would already be dead or worse. He stood up and leered over me, and I glared back at him, just as uncooperative as I have been since the final battle with the Infinity, when Negan decided to throw away so many lives, just because he wanted to, because he thought they were less important.

Negan’s fist tightened around Lucille and I could see in his face that he knew something was going on with me, that I was angry with him, and I was done with him, but he had no idea what. And this made him angry and antsy; the people would have my back, not his if it came down to it. 

“I made that choice because I fucking had to. Didn’t mean I fucking liked it,” he finally said and I felt my anger grow. “No, you didn’t have to. You made that choice because it was the most convenient for you, and it would save your sorry ass,” I snarled back and his hand backhanded my face again. I barely moved, didn’t flinch, though I could feel my cheek heating up with the heat of the impact on my skin.

“Really? We’re back to this again?” I snarled at him and I could see some fear in his eyes, though it fleeting and buried. Negan lashed out like this on me when he was afraid, when he had no idea what to do next and he was trying to get a rise or some answers out of me. I just glared hard at him and I could see that cool confidence in him slowly falling away as he stared back, though he was doing his very best to keep it on his face, but it was fading from his eyes. He knew I was done with him, and that only meant trouble for him, and his power.

“If we’re done here, I wanna get some sleep,” I said, still feeling the heat from the leather-clad hand on my face, but ignoring it as I walked around Negan to pull my covers off the bed. Negan hitched that abominable smile back on his face, and walked out with his normal swagger. I slid under the covers after the locking the door and letting out a faint sigh that I didn’t know I had been holding. I hadn’t done anything to reveal what I had really been doing, I just needed Dwight to do the same.

Dwight was back before Aura was and he was secretly relieved, though not surprised, to know that Aura was on board with him. They had many differences, and rarely got along when in a room together, but Aura was one to put aside everything, even personal vendettas, to get something of more importance done. And she would be the key to getting Negan out of power; though she wouldn’t do it herself, she would be the one that made the people choose between Negan and her, and Dwight knew that everyone in the Sanctuary, other than a dozen or so, would choose her. They suffered at the hands of Negan more than the people of the other communities did.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Dwight could remember when the first winter came around, and Aura was a little known member of the community, though she had risen in the medical ranks and was a full-time worker. The winter was hard, and was the first winter since the turn, and food was running out, people were getting scared and starting to steal. Negan said anyone that was caught stealing would be killed, even if they were kids; everyone had to work for their food, except him and his wives of course.

Many people had trouble making ends meet because the system was so skewed. Those without special skills worked hard for meager points and those often were the people with kids to care for. Aura made more points than the average person and used those to treat medical situations for people that couldn’t afford it otherwise; but even then, people often went hungry and some were slowly but surely starving to death. Eventually, an older couple was found unable to work, because they had become so weak and malnourished, they couldn’t function anymore. They could barely sit up and move around. Aura had tried to sneak some food using her points for them, but it needed badly: Negan found out, and not only locked her in the basement, but he banished the elderly couple because they weren’t useful enough. The rest of the Sanctuary could only watch as the couple collapsed just outside the gates, unable to move, and were eaten alive by a few walkers.

When Aura found out, still new to the Sanctuary, she raised hell with Negan. That was their very first fight, so loud in his office it carried down several flights of stairs, and through most of the building. Aura said that everyone was important, even if Negan didn’t think so, and he was not judge, jury and executioner for people that hadn’t even done anything wrong. Somethings were broken in his office, it was obvious when it was over they had gotten in a fistfight and Aura held her own against him. She left that office, bloody lip, and black eye, and though Negan had no visible damage, it was much deeper. He lost control of his left arm sporadically for weeks after that, and had trouble keeping his right leg still or in line when he walked, stood or sat down. He had trouble controlling it, making his right leg and left arm doing what he wanted them to do. Aura’s bruises had long healed, but Negan was still feeling the effects of her attacks. And Dwight realized that Negan might have a thing for her when he didn’t kill her immediately after that; he also say just how strong and dangerous Aura could be when angered.

That winter was harder still, and Aura worked harder than before, trying to get enough points to pay for meals for the kids that parents had trouble supporting. Negan was against this, and she was often seen being forced into a basement dungeon cell as punishment. When an illness ran through the compound, aura was the one that treated everyone, regardless of points available to pay, and used her won points, often skipping meals to pay for it. Aura had argued with Negan that those were her points, and she should be able to do what she wanted with them. Negan argued that people that couldn’t earn enough points on their own weren’t worth the effort. And another fist fight started after that. Negan once again came out markless, but was definitely the loser; this time he couldn’t move his left arm at all for days.

Aura ended up getting 10 lashes next time she used her points to treat someone else, a punishment Negan had never done before, but he felt it was needed to get his point across. Aura never flinched when the whip crossed her skin, leaving a bleeding, long, painful slice through the beautiful skin of her back. She never made a noise, barely blinked, and the people seemed to be gaining strength from inability to move or bend to Negan’s will. The people worked harder and looked out for one another more than before Aura had arrived, and Negan was slowly but steadily realizing he was losing his power. He should have killed Aura then, before things got out of hand, but he didn’t. He found her intriguing, strong-willed and someone he liked having around because it turned him on for some reason, and he found her strength and resilience intoxicating. Of course he never said this to anyone, not even Simon.

When the winter faded and the first crops came in to feed everyone again and it was warm enough to go scouting again, the Sanctuary had lost 41 people to illness, hypothermia, or starvation. Starvation and illness was because they didn’t have the points to pay for the increased price of food, or always expensive medicine, and were left to die. Aura had spent many nights and days in the dungeons as punishment, and ended up getting over 100 lashes during the winter for her continued work on feeding those that couldn’t feed themselves, and treating those that couldn’t afford it.

By the time the welcomed spring came around, the people of the Sanctuary were looking at Aura almost like a god, often bowing their heads for her, though never getting on their knees for her like they had to with Negan. But they chose to bow their heads for her, and weren’t doing it because they had to. Negan could see this and realized that she needed to be watched more carefully, not only because of her obvious anger and hatred for him, but because the people would follow her now; they would want to follow her, not because they had to or were afraid, they would want to follow her, because they respected and trusted her. And that was more dangerous to Negan’s power than any uprising in the communities.

So, shortly after spring thaw, Negan made Aura a member of his inner circle, his Saviors, though she still spent most of her time in the medical bay, leaving only occasionally to go hunt when the time of year was right or food levels were getting very low. She proved to be invaluable to keeping the people in line, Negan would once in a great while concede to Aura, allowing her to make a small change to the sanctuary, usually the point system or something small, and it would make her somewhat happy, at least stop her from launching an all-out rebellion against him. And with her in a seat of power, the people in the Sanctuary felt more like their voices were being heard and were less like a powder keg waiting for a spark.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Dwight entered his own room on the same floor as Negan and Aura, though Aura wasn’t even back yet, and sat on his bed. With Aura’s help, she would get the people on her side, and this hopefully wouldn’t get bloody or drawn out. 

With her help, this would be over before it even had to start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Luv4uall!!  
> This Entire work is on hiatus while I work on another fanfic.  
> If your interested, look up "Pheromones" in the Avengers fandom, staring Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Tony Stark and an OFC, rating explicit.


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